Cultural Psychology in Communities: Tensions and Transformations 1648021964, 9781648021961

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Cultural Psychology in Communities Tensions and Transformations

A Volume in Annals of Cultural Psychology Series Editors Carlos Cornejo Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile Giuseppina Marsico University of Salerno Jaan Valsiner Aalborg University

Annals of Cultural Psychology Carlos Cornejo, Giuseppina Marsico, and Jaan Valsiner, Series Editors Cultural Psychology in Communities: Tensions and Transformations (2020) edited by Floor van Alphen and Susanne Normann Ordinary Things and Their Extraordinary Meanings (2019) edited by Giuseppina Marsico and Luca Tateo I Activate You To Affect Me (2018) edited by Carlos Cornejo, Giuseppina Marsico, and Jaan Valsiner Making Meaning, Making Motherhood (2015) edited by Kenneth R. Cabell, Giuseppina Marsico, Carlos Cornejo, and Jaan Valsiner

Cultural Psychology in Communities Tensions and Transformations Editors

Floor van Alphen

Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

and Susanne Normann University of Oslo

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CONTENTS Series Editors’ Preface—Creating Cultural Psychology of Community: What Is Needed?.........................................................vii Acknowledgments................................................................................... xvii 1. Introduction: The Tensions and Transformations of Moving in Communities Susanne Normann and Floor van Alphen.............................................. 1 SECTION I: RESISTANCE OR TRANSFORMATION WITHIN, TOWARDS AND FROM COMMUNITIES 2. Constituting Childbirth Activism in Argentina: A Study of Place, Identity, and Emotions María Fernanda González.................................................................. 23 3. The Performative Momentum of the Hashtag: An Examination of the #MeToo Movement Andreas A. Andersen and Nikolai S. K. Lybæk..................................... 43 4. Meaning Making Processes in a Professional Community of Social Workers Line Søberg Bjerre.............................................................................. 65 5. Making Meaning of Disability in Residents’ Meetings for Municipal Welfare Policy Masakuni Tagaki............................................................................... 79



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6. Maneuvering Around Conflicts Between International Development NGOs and Local Communities Toward Poverty Alleviation in Ghana Seth Amofah......................................................................................103 7. Restoration of Purpose: A Goal-Focused Approach to Cultural Transformation and Well-Being Promotion Among Marginalized Communities David Krzesni and Simon Coulombe.................................................. 123 8. Commentary—Experiencing Change: Interrelations Between Individual and Social Transformations Sarah H. Awad..................................................................................147 SECTION II: MEANING MAKING IN BETWEEN DIFFERENT COMMUNITIES 9. Recognition as a Catalyst for Agency: Experiences From an Intercultural Art Project for Young People Hildegunn Marie T. Seip...................................................................161 10. The Migration Project: Studying the Narrative Construction of Migrant Mobility in a Nonlinear Way Eva Céspedes and Floor van Alphen...................................................185 11. Exploring the Tensions and Possible Transformations in Talent Mobility to Estonian Universities Muhammed Abdulai......................................................................... 209 12. Self-Expansion Through Proculturation: Semiotic Movement Toward Curvilinear Development Vladimer Lado Gamsakhurdia.......................................................... 225 13. “Apart From Being Taught, You Teach Yourself”: Appropriation and Religious Trajectories Among Children and Youth in a Toba/Qom Neighborhood of Buenos Aires Mariana García Palacios.................................................................. 249 14. Commentary—Cultural Psychology, Communities, and the Construction of Excluding Spaces: The Production of Foreigners Danilo Silva Guimarães....................................................................273 About the Authors...................................................................................289

SERIES EDITORS’ PREFACE

CREATING CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY OF COMMUNITY What Is Needed?

This volume is a landmark in contemporary cultural psychology. It undertakes a task that should have happened in the last three decades of the development of the area—but did not happen. Despite all the recognition of the social nature of the human being and the cultural processes of meaning-making, looking at the field of community psychology has escaped the attention of the makers of this new field of human science. It is—at first glance—a very surprising omission. Yet there is an interesting rationale in this omission. Like the notion of culture, the meaning of community has been one of the ill-defined concepts of sociology. Add to this the other poorly defined concept of society and we have a triumvirate of three abstract, fuzzy, and important notions for the social sciences. Being abstract and fuzzy is not a problem for our efforts to use general concepts in science—in fact it may be even a benefit (Löwy, 1992). Yet it sets up concrete tasks for scientists to link these with concrete concepts and with the phenomena under study. The latter are wholistic— not reducible to components. Community is a social whole—involving indeterminate number of persons and their variable relationships—in place between individual persons and society.

Cultural Psychology in Communities: Tensions and Transformations, pp. vii–xv Copyright © 2020 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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The problem starts from the efforts to link the organization of ordinary human lives with those of collective frameworks within which the human beings live. These frameworks are simultaneously all-powerful and ephemeral. We all live by the system of law we have accepted—but it cannot be located anywhere in our environment. Human beings can be located— including those who are wearing police or lawyer uniforms, with whom we interact as human beings. They represent the otherwise ephemeral “law.” So, the need to specify what community might entail is a more complex conceptual task than listing all the members of a particular social grouping. Community is an organic totality—a Ganzheit—that operates as if it had clearly defined borders and structure, while in reality there exist episodic structuring of the social interchanges. Such structuring takes many forms. People regularly gather on markets and places of worship, they concatenate in public places to demonstrate their loyalties to the communities, or protest against political decisions made elsewhere. Organizers of communities create events that are supposed to “consolidate the community,” political candidates travel through to gain votes from the members of the community. And so on. Yet it is the persons who in some forms of collective actions can be viewed as forming a community. The originator of the pure sociology of community—Ferdinand Tönnies—attempted to specify the notion of community extending outwards from the persons—goals-oriented and willful—toward society. His notion of Gemeinschaft (Tönnies, 1877) as community has been notoriously difficult to translate into other languages (Runeberg, 1971), except into English. For example, into Russian it has been translated in two ways— as obshchina (real social collective of social cohesion that inhabits a location) or obshtnost (any kind of formal unity of belonging together—Filippov, 2002, p. 393). A similar uncertainty occurs on the side of Gesellschaft—it can be an association (e.g., of a profession) or of a wider conglomerate of persons under the same collective structure—society. The border of wider version of Gemeinschaft and a small version of Gesellschaft has a fuzzy border that makes distinction making difficult. Despite their fuzzy limits and gray cases, the core distinction is clear: while communities are organic and real parts of the social life, societies are artificial, rationally planned, and mechanic. Community is rooted in familiar, friendship and small-group relationships. Society is bounded to the modern model of relationship, typical of the industrial common life, where people interact constantly but with roles, not with fellows. As a consequence: Community is the permanent and genuine living together; society only a transient and apparent one.... [C]ommunity should be understood as a living organism, and society as a mechanical aggregate and device. (Tönnies, 1877, p. 5, our translation).

Series Editors’ Preface   ix

The distinction is crucially based on the microsocial and psychological consequences of living together in modern societies, where many people live and grow surrounded by anonymous others, whose individuality is diluted in the organized gigantic mass. Tönnies was well aware of the difficult task of drawing borders between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft. He considered the Gemeinschaft from its smallest unit—that of family—outwards to the village life (Dorfleben) ending up with religious commitment. This rural focus of the Gemeinschaft led outwards to the urban Gesellschaft (large city life—based on conventions, national living within a state). Beyond the urban living Tönnies emphasized cosmopolitan ways of social living in Learned Republic (Gelehrter-Republik— Tönnies, 1877, p. 289). The contrast between rural and urban ways of living in the unifying country of Germany in the 1870s was a developmental one— given the rapid urbanization and industrialization. The social context for thinking about the relations of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft in the 21st century are no longer reducible to the rural-urban contrasts. THE OMNIPRESENCE AND INVISIBILITY OF COMMUNITY Translation issues aside—the difficulty with community is its ephemeral status. When the word is used in common language it can be narrowed down to concrete entities with administratively fixed borders that may be disputed, fought over, and marked by signposts, walls or rubber stamps in passports (O’Byrne, 2001). Yet at the same time the community that these borders seem to circumscribe is vague and involves members that live far away from these borders. They need not have—neither need to have— formal institutional permissions or certificates to belong to a community. Likewise, a person officially part of a community does not need to feel to belong in it. The subjective feeling of community and its formal side need not be isomorphic. And this is the root problem for creating any community psychology. Another related problem is the contemporary use, sometimes clumsy, sometimes sly, of community, to refer organizational units that differ from the original sense of a “permanent and genuine living together.” Thus, organizations pursuing perfectly explicit rational goals can call themselves “communities,” creating purposely or not the misguided idea of constituting natural friendship or fellowship circles. This is the case when CEOs, political associations or ideological instances address their employees, citizens or affiliates as “dear community X.” Organizations are typically modern groupings, united by a rationally defined common goal. In this sense, an organization (be this political, academic or ideological) cannot be community. Such uses are widespread in modern, marketing-oriented

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societies, and contribute much to the conceptual confusion between Tönnies’s two radically different ways to organize social life. What is the minimal set of concepts needed for a cultural community psychology? The focus here starts from the top—human feeling with a set of identity objects as “the community.” This object is necessarily vague—it may be an imaginary complex, or a far-away existing group of people in no single location (“scholarly community”). The feeling with depends upon feeling into (Einfühlung) that creates the link beyond that of mere alignment. I feel with the political fight of the Group X in country Y in their desire for freedom but I only begin to understand the meaning of that freedom when I feel into the imaginary lives of the elected other person from Group X to a social power role. It is impossible for a 21st century Christian believer to belong to the community of Christians in the Roman Empire of the a.d. 3rd century and be martyred with them. It is possible for them to feel with—be horrified and sympathize—these early dissident Christians who were cruelly massacred in Roman amphitheaters in front of the cheering audiences. Yet it is only when the feeling into the life of a would-be early Christian martyr happens that the psychological link over two millennia is made in the mind of our contemporary members of the official Christian community (certified by their paying the Church tax). The far-away—in space and time—community becomes mine in my feeling into it—and I may feel I belong to the community that existed over thousand years ago rather than the official one of today. Through feeling into the Other I have brought the Other into my Self—the community becomes a functional part of my Self, not me myself “participating” in a community. In a similar manner it is the societal order—democratic or other—that can be brought into the Self (Hermans et al., 2017). The reverse process is involved in the making of the community of real persons here-and-now. The internalized community-in-myself can be brought to be externalized with the feelings of the Others—hence the descriptions of the “plaza communities” that have emerged in Argentina (Gonzalez, Chapter 2, this volume) and the creation of an imaginary community on the web through hashtags (Andersen & Lybæk, Chapter 3, this volume) are examples of the use of feeling-with externalizing actions leading to the intrapersonal feeling-in with the experiences of the others. The #MeToo has demonstrated its anonymous social power in deeply affectivating large populace and leading to prompt acts of social power reorganization in societies and institutions. The dialogue of hashtags (e.g., like other possible ones—#ME-NOT or #ME-NEVER—if these were to be introduced) is yet to be observed. Potentially enormous size virtual communities of social consequences can be formed rapidly by social media.

Series Editors’ Preface   xi

The making and changing of such mass communities made possible by the social media is possible due to the epistemological shade (see Bjerre, Chapter 4, this volume) within which such deeply affective meaning construction takes place. That shade entails approximate understanding of the complex cases based on always limited information—where the social workers’ experience-based intuition fills in the gaps in available information. This is a very strong counterpoint to our contemporary naïve belief in the “evidence based” decision making in medicine or psychology. As the work by the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman on the simulation heuristics demonstrates the final centrality of human affective processes in our practical actions in general (Kahnemann & Tversky, 1982). Collective actions in the context of the Ganzheit of community follow a similar basic rule—only it is coordinated between various decision makers. Cultural community psychology thus needs to operate through the use of social representations within affective hyper-generalized (Valsiner, 2019) and socially shared fields. THE IMPORTANCE AND UNTRUSTABILITY OF TRUST All through this volume the idea of trust—in, and by, communities—emerges as a crucial “glue” that keeps people together. The hypergeneralized feeling that can be labelled trust is the catalyst for the actions taken under the epistemological shades—either by social workers in small caring institutions or large anonymous believers in the truth of the social media. As a result, there is a permanently reconstituted uncertainty in the relationships between community members—leading to the need for trust. The trust becomes interestingly contested when the consensually accepted and unreflectively normatized community practices encounter different forms in other communities. The difficulties that Estonian NGOs have (see Amofah, Chapter 6, this volume) in demanding documentary proof of their money spending during bus travels in Ghana (where documents like tickets do not exist), or of signatures of receiving support by illiterate recipients indicate the power of epistemological shades in tension between one another. The others should trust that I paid X amount of money to go from place A to place B because I did actually undertake that trip. But the other does not trust me—demanding a piece of paper with a number on it as a “receipt,” or my fingerprint on a list of deliveries that I have received. The accountant in the NGO headquarters back in Estonia would doubt the story of “no tickets in Ghana” and demand extra evidence. So—instead of trust in-between communities we see non-trust that can lead to new forms of administrative colonialism—if the Other does not play by the same game rules as we (everything documented on paper) we will force our system upon theirs. This is easily done by the power of money.

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The administrative colonialism is already in place also in the scientific community. To guarantee protection, the signing of consent forms by research participants has become an established administrative practice. It seems to benefit the participants. Yet it creates a jeopardy in other countries than those where the Institutional Review Boards (formerly labeled as “human ethics committees”) are located. A young researcher who travels to the field in a far-away country has to get the informal but public consent from the village elders to carry out her research, and then explain to the local participants in the research what the demand for their signature or finger print means. What is “informed consent” under conditions of a large difference of understanding about what “research” means? The established trust—informal consent—is easily jeopardized by the introduction of the paperwork to prove in the mother country that its laws have been followed. This is done—we are being assured—to guarantee the legal integrity of the scientific community. It is an example of the epistemological shade that covers that community. STEPS TOWARD CULTURAL COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY What are the core ideas for cultural community psychology? We can outline four dualities—pairs of mutually linked opposites—that are needed for understanding of the communities in their ephemeral reality: Territoriality as related with extraterritoriality. A group of persons unified by some label they have designated for themselves—or another group has attached to them—inhabits a particular location. This is community in the narrow sense. It may inhabit a completely unique locus were no representatives of others inhabiting the same territory and no persons from the locus living or commuting outside of the territory. The territory may be surrounded by marked (fences or border markers) or unmarked (large areas of unpassable terrains) borders. This is the case of completely isolated communities which from time to time are discovered in difficult to approach places of the World. On the other extreme one can find communities of no territoriality—where community members are completely scattered individually around the World yet claim to be members of the community (e.g., esperantists). In between these extremes one finds examples of relating the territoriality with extraterritoriality through the movement of community members for trade, war, pilgrimage, temporary work, and so forth. Cultural psychology of the territorial aspect entails the meanings of borders and their crossings, and the ways in which the extra-territorial members relate to the others in the home areas. Borders are usually conceived as a dichotomy (“in out”, “here there”, “home street”) and fixed by opposed forces instead of

Series Editors’ Preface   xiii

processes that make borders to connect and divide the parts in an inclusive separated relationship (Valsiner, 1987). The recent attempt to reframe the notion of Border in Cultural Psychology perspective (Marsico, 2016) aims exactly at underlying the processual nature of Border not as a rigid, visible and linear entity, but as a Border Zone in which human agency is possible and widely promoted. Borders are in motion (Konrad, 2015) and this calls for a renewed look at the territorial-based definition of community. Here, for instance the meanings of pilgrimage, travel for work, relations with outsiders entering the territory (tourists, robbers, tax collectors, missionaries) are central for organizing the territorial aspects of a community. Visibility—in relation with—nonvisibility. Within the territorial units, their borders and extensions beyond borders various versions of links of visibility and nonvisibility are included. This contrast is not reduced to that of public—related with—private aspects of community. A woman dressed up in a complete Muslim body coverage passing through the village street is visible as a walker through the street while remaining completely invisible as to her feelings, goals and body. A woman performing strip-tease in a club is completely visible as her body while staying totally nonvisible as to her thoughts and her dismissive attitude toward the licentious screaming and paying male audience. A military man in a camouflage uniform on the battlefield is attempting to be as nonvisible as possible while his goals of being there—conquest—are very visible. A building designated as “community center” is made visible in the village but the persons who decide upon community affairs may be completely nonvisible (“the grey eminence” behind the publicly known local politicians—a cardinal, a newly rich oligarch, or an influential courtesan). The borders of visibility and nonvisibility are carefully organized and constantly renegotiated (by paparazzi and WikiLeaks, for example). Collectivity—in relation with—noncollectivity. A community is a process of network relationships in which the personal agencies operate through agencies of the others. This creates interesting illusions of visibility for outsiders as well as insiders—for instance, the determination of the leadership roles in the community. Leadership seems to be a role of particular individuals—yet the only way in which community leadership is possible is through the network of relationships of the particular “community leader” with the indeterminate set of others within the community, and in relation (e.g., in opposition) to others in an opposing community. The leadership role looks as if it is autonomous and independent of the community network, but it is an illusion. A leader is made, and functions, only through the fluid network of the community—it is an example of deep collectivity that is visible as if it is noncollective and personal. Maintenance—in relation with—nonmaintenance. A community is an indeterminate social network that maintains itself as an open system—in

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exchange relationships with its “outside”—other communities, resources needed for existence, etc. This steady state can change in the direction of development of the community—via its self-transformation or through some intervention from outside. The latter may be solicited (a company brings in “expert advice” or the conversion of the Roman Empire into Christianity under Constantinus over the 4th century culminating in A.D. 391) or unsolicited (the arrival of a ship with missionaries on a Pacific island, or changing of tariff systems in trade with economic partners). All these acts are practical and at the same time symbolic events on the border of maintenance of the previous community system and its nonmaintenance in the form of disequilibration and establishing new steady state (Español et al., 2018). The crucial feature of the cultural nature of communities is the centeredness on meaning for all of these four dualities where it—in the form of signs and meaningful acts—is located. It is within the border zones within and between communities where cultural regulation functions play their central role. To continue the illustration from above—having in the middle of a village or town a hut or a castle labeled “Community Center” does not by itself constitute the object for cultural community psychology as a target of research or place for applications. Instead, the largely nonvisible coming and goings of various persons in and out of the “center,” and the gossips of the bystanders about these activities, lead a cultural psychologist like an anthropologist to the core of the organization of the nebulous yet real phenomenon that community anywhere in the World is. Cultural community psychology has its epistemological core in the recognition of the formal systems that account for the copresence and the relation of the distinguished opposites. The above mentioned four dualities are based on a cogenetic logic (Herbst, 1976) where A and non-A coexist and function in specifiable relationships. Communities are real nonexisting organizational forms—it is their totality of presence in the lives of human beings that cannot be pinned down to only any place that makes them all-powerful catalysts of human lives. Jaan Valsiner Aalborg—Vienna Giuseppina Marsico Salerno—Salvador da Bahia Carlos Cornejo Santiago de Chile November 2019

Series Editors’ Preface   xv

REFERENCES Español, A., Marsico, G., & Tateo, L. (2018). Maintaining borders: From border guards to diplomats. Human Affairs, 28(3), 443–460. https://doi.org/10.1515/ humaff-2018-0036 Filippov, A. F. (2002). Between sociology and socialism: Introduction to the concept of Ferdinand Tönnies. In F. Tönnies (Ed.), Obshtnost I obschestvo: Osnovnye poniatia chistoi sotsiologii [Community & society: Basic concepts of pure sociology] (pp. 386–445). Dover Publication (Vladimir Dal, Russian translation) Herbst, D. P. G. (1976). Alternatives to hierarchies. Martinus Nihoff. Hermans, H. J. M., Konopka, A., Oosterwegel, A., & Zomer, P. (2017). Fields of tension in a boundary-crossing world: Towards a democratic organization of the self. IPBS: Integrative Psychological & Behavioral Science, 51, 505–535 Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1982). The simulation heuristic. In D. Kahneman, P. Slovic, & A. Tversky (Eds.), Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases (pp. 201–208). Cambridge University Press. Konrad, V. (2015). Toward a theory of borders in motion. Journal of Borderlands Studies, 30(1), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/08865655.2015.1008387 Löwy, I. (1992). The strength of loose concepts—boundary concepts, federative experimental strategies and disciplinary growth: The case of immunology. History of Science, 30 (90), 376–396. Marsico, G. (2016). The borderland. Culture & Psychology, 22(2), 206–215. https:// doi.org/10.1177/1354067X15601199 O’Byrne, D. J. (2001). On passports and border controls. Annals of Tourism Research, 28(2), 39416. Runeberg, A. (1971). On the (un)translatability of some of Ferdinand Tönnies’ principal sociological ideas. Acta Sociologica, 14(4), 227–235. Tönnies, F. (1877). Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft: Abhandlung des communismus und socialismus als empirischer culturformen [Community and society. Treatise of communism and socialism as empirical forms of culture]. Fuer’s Verlag. Valsiner, J. (1987). Culture and the development of children’s action. Wiley. Valsiner, J. (2019). Hyper-generalization by the human mind: The role of sign hierarchies in meaning-making processes. PsychoSozial Verlag.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The editors wish to thank the organizers and participants of the 2018 Summer School on The Cultural Psychology of Dynamic Semiosis at the Centre for Cultural Psychology of Aalborg University. We thank Jaan Valsiner for his invitation and support, Brady Wagoner for his hospitality and our fellow participants for their valuable contributions also beyond the pages of this book. Several of our colleagues have collaborated voluntarily in the peer-review process, for which we are very grateful. Special thanks also to Sarah Awad and Danilo Silva Guimarães for their myriad reflections. Floor van Alphen extends her thanks to the Comunidad de Madrid Research Talent Attraction Program for co-funding her fellowship at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and the Erasmus+ Program for funding her stay at Aalborg University, Denmark, which enabled her to participate in the Summer School and the subsequent editing process. She wishes to thank María Fernanda González in particular for an inspiring collaboration and discussions that significantly helped envisioning this book. Susanne Normann thanks the Centre for Development and the Environment (SUM) at the University of Oslo, for the fellowship there and for funding her visit to Aalborg University, Denmark, so that she was able to participate in the Summer School and in editing this book. She also extends her thanks to the research group on Culture- and Society Psychology at the Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, for all their contributions and for bringing about the contact with the Aalborg University Centre for Cultural Psychology.

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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION The Tensions and Transformations of Moving in Communities Susanne Normann and Floor van Alphen People have been attempting to cross all kinds of borders since, in fact, the dawn of humanity. There is no culture, or if you want, no human civilization, the origins of which do not lie in one form of migration or the other. To extend that, to be human, or to become human, historically, it is tantamount to move; leave one place and go to another. —Achille Mbembe (personal communication, September 13, 2019)

Meaning making processes are studied in cultural psychology in manifold ways. Such processes that transform people and direct their future actions as they make sense of their past, present, and future, are connected, even when they are personal, to communities. “Communities” have been present in cultural psychology, implicitly when considering the constitution of complex psychological processes, focusing on internalizing cultural means through social interaction, and explicitly when considering human

Cultural Psychology in Communities: Tensions and Transformations, pp. 1–19 Copyright © 2020 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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development, dialogicity, and intersubjectivity (e.g., Guimarães, 2020). Recent work in cultural psychology has connected meaning making processes with those of resistance, sudden ruptures and social transformation on meso- and macrolevels (e.g., Chaudhary et al., 2017; Stetsenko, 2018; Wagoner et al., 2018; Zittoun, 2016). This volume of the Annals of Cultural Psychology brings community to the forefront and engages with processes of social transformation enabled and constrained by meaning making. In particular it looks at meaning making in and in-between communities. The contributors to this volume engage in geographically and semantically diverse fields of research and explore the tensions and transformations in meaning making, as conceptualized in recent work within cultural psychology (e.g., Abbey, 2012; Zittoun, 2016), that people articulate in (between) communities. Central to this endeavor is the need to explore methodologies, concepts and research questions that can assist engaging in social transformation toward social justice, diversity, and equality in a polarizing but interconnected world. Indeed, as researchers we look to engage with communities too. The volume is a continuation of the interdisciplinary efforts during the 2018 Summer School at the Centre for Cultural Psychology at Aalborg University to articulate dynamic semiosis with the ongoing research of young scholars in the social sciences. In a week of enriching discussions, an interdisciplinary community was formed, interested in the dynamics of meaning making in terms of psychological development clearly embedded within processes of social transformation and related to movements across the planet. What these researchers had in common was a concern with developments on a scale wider than micro- and ontogenesis. Global sociopolitical, socioeconomic, and ecological issues inevitably formed a ground for the figure of meaning making in the discussions. The efforts concentrated on significantly relating micro- and macrolevel processes, perhaps without noticing that the Summer School participants were operating on a mesolevel: the level of a community. Since we found that communities were at the core of our summer school discussions—and that they would be constitutive to this volume—many communities have drawn our attention. They are interesting not merely as units of analysis, or social settings for meaning making processes, but also as those multiple communities we move through and participate in as researchers (Glăveanu, 2010). Indeed, this is similar to how philosopher Isabelle Stengers thinks about scientific interest, as inter esse—being among or related to what we study (Pinheiro Dias et al., 2016). Illustrative are the events at the beginning of 2019, when a community of cultural psychologists was mobilized. Though in a way the community already existed, now it was on the move. Receiving the news that two colleagues suddenly were to lose their position at Aalborg University due to drastic nationwide cuts

Introduction  3

in Denmark, a transcontinental chain of e-mails rapidly formed, expressing solidarity, and agreeing that something had to be done. The idea circulated first that everybody could write a letter to the university authorities and then that everybody could sign a letter or a petition. Colleagues agreed with one or both options and this communication back and forth went on for some time. From the look of it, colleagues were waiting for something. There was action, semiotically mediated, but it did not really feel like we were on the move. Some of us sought council with colleagues in separate e-mails, in languages other than English. Many things went on simultaneously, but the movement of this community connected by a mailing list was not immediate or inherent to its activation. Then, a member with a central role in initiating the chain of e-mails gave further information on where to send the letter, and a little later, launched the petition. Finally, something could be done. The petition turned out to have little effect on the University’s decision. However, since then things have been cooking in the Centre for Cultural Psychology, elaborating the pièce de résistance of moving the Kitchen Seminar resources from Aalborg University to the University of Salerno. Such events raise questions about how communities, also the ones we are or could be involved in, come together, (dis)function, simultaneously transform participants and wider society, develop and dissolve. Questions about the meaning making processes, which constitute and are constituted by communities, are pertinent to the cultural psychological field, especially given the wider scenario in which we now operate. LOOKING INTO AND THROUGH A KALEIDOSCOPE Suggesting the interconnectedness and dynamics of our communities, the book cover presents an image seen when looking through a kaleidoscope. Apart from offering manifold and interconnected color patterns with a connotation of beauty, a kaleidoscope metaphor also enables more problematic interpretations. According to Marx and Engels, rather than visualizing a dynamic diversity, the kaleidoscope merely reproduces a single image or its own self-reflection through its mirrors (Crary, 2013). Walter Benjamin (1985) uses a kaleidoscope in his writings as a metaphor for how the rulers’ concepts are the mirrors through which the order prevails. His advice is to smash the kaleidoscope. Social scientists criticizing the neoliberal essentialist notions of diversity, like multiculturalism, might agree (e.g., Dietz, 2009; Hale, 2006). Yet, Boike Rehbein (2018, p. 62), ushers in a more positive view, of the dialectical kaleidoscope: to construct kaleidoscopes—seems to me an epistemological device that fits our multicentric world. Incommensurable systems of science and ethics

4  S. NORMANN and F. van ALPHEN now confront each other. Factually, they exist side by side. They have their scope, for which they retain a certain plausibility. As these realms increasingly intermingle and crisscross, they cannot ignore each other anymore. They cease to exist side by side and begin to establish relations.

Encouraged by Rehbein’s dialectics and keeping in mind that the kaleidoscope is a seducing and imaginably misleading mixing of colors if it accommodates power to the disadvantage of most of us, we use it as a metaphor for meaning making processes and social transformation, within and between communities. The dynamic image produced by the kaleidoscope is not fluid: the pieces of glass sometimes lock into a position and only after more tension builds up they shift position, making way for newer configurations. In an epistemological vein, and related to Benjamin’s thinking, sensitizing concepts may block the advancement of research for a long time (Valsiner, 2012), until ruptures of such “locked systems” can produce renewed meanings and allow us to move further. Either way, observing the tensions between considering dynamic and interconnected processes and using an epistemological device, the kaleidoscope has enabled our own meaning making in the course of editing and introducing this volume, suggesting at once repetition and creativity on different levels. COMMUNITIES IN CONTEXTS OF POLITICAL STRUGGLES Contextualizing the hypergeneralized feelings (Branco & Valsiner, 2010) that characterized the 2018 summer school discussions and also the events eventually catalyzing the transformation of the Kitchen Seminar, it is clear that they do not occur in a political vacuum. Higher education is under pressure in many places and arguably connected to other alarming political developments. In some places, colleagues confront more profound difficulties than in others. Brazil’s public universities suffer severe cuts in funding accompanied by hostile government discourses that confound academic freedom with ideologies, particularly hitting faculties with critical traditions like sociology or philosophy. In Turkey, preceding the invasion of Northern Syria in October 2019, censorship of political dissent had been increasing, including measures against academics whose research has revealed human rights violations, particularly against the country’s Kurdish population or against politicians and journalists who are working on the issue. Academic freedom has been curbed by multiple demissions and even criminalization of critical researchers. The International Society for Political Psychology has responded by launching the Scholars Under Threat Fund to support the expenses of dismissed academics in Turkey. This call for support increases the visibility of a political psychology community. Not just political in terms

Introduction  5

of the phenomena that interest the political psychologist, but political in terms of the need to join a movement advancing a political agenda, like human rights. Advancing this argument and contextualization, the problems affecting academia are by no means exclusive to the higher education sector. Rather, the changes are mirroring broader patterns of political transformation. The contributors to this volume discuss some of these. Krzesni and Coulombe (2020) address these broader patterns as social or cultural degradation. Bjerre (2020) discusses the neoliberal reforms, or New Public Management, imposed in social systems of care. The rise of authoritarian governments in Brazil and Turkey is intricately related to the rise of violent movements, normalizing right wing or religious fundamentalist discourse in our societies and leading to affective responses like fear and diminished solidarity toward refugees or minorities. Meanwhile, these developments happen in the context of ecological crisis and global warming, now a metanarrative as well as a life-threatening phenomenon, causing anxiety and apathy within many Western societies and mobilization, among others. That is, while certain communities are migrating away from the consequences of climate change (Krzesni & Coulombe, 2020), others fear its consequences, and some continue to deny that they are taking place. At the same time that migration intensifies, related to the transforming economic, political, and ecological scenarios, borders are fortified by artificial intelligence, walls and social representations of the other as a threat. In this vein, contributions to this volume draw attention to talented students from the global south attracted to universities in the global north, which apparently happens with reluctance and one can wonder how progressive talent mobility really is (Abdulai, 2020). Moreover, even diligently elaborated progressive legal frameworks for migration have not been able to resist severe restrictions on human mobility (Céspedes & van Alphen, 2020). Nevertheless, as it has been elaborately addressed in community psychology (Nelson & Prilleltensky, 2010; Watts & Serrano-García, 2003), processes of degradation, repression and marginalization are mirrored by processes of resistance in the shape of political movements or as more subtle expressions. Such processes, further illustrated by chapters in this volume, happen on the level of microgenesis and sociogenesis. They are not symmetrical as the transforming mosaic seen through a kaleidoscope, but they can be diverse, colorful, dynamic, and interconnected. In the context of ecological crises and degradation we also observe inverse and multiple movements, toward creation and appreciation of diversity. The development and mobilization of communities is central here, such as when student movements emerge in the corridors, auditoriums and squares of university campuses, in defending the rights of outsourced workers in the university’s many services or evolving in dialogue with critical work

6  S. NORMANN and F. van ALPHEN

of researchers from the global south on decoloniality (Glăveanu & Sierra, 2015; Walsh, 2010). Perhaps most communities of resistance are emerging outside the university, for example during the Arab spring (Awad, 2016). Also in the wake of social movements like #Niunamenos, #BlackLivesMatter or #MeToo (Andersen & Lybæk, 2020; González, 2020) it can be seen how resisting communities are constructed in the streets or between the streets and cyberspace. While there is Extinction Rebellion and an international youth movement against climate change, traditional communities, indigenous people and farmers confronted with extractive industries or other forms of exploitation continue to resist the annihilation of their lands and life forms (Krzesni & Coulombe, 2020). Many communities in the global south face tense situations in defining their own ways of life while facing the top-down approaches in many development programs established to compensate colonial legacies (Amofah, 2020; see also Jovchelovitch & Hawlina, 2018). Resistance processes can also be subtle, even when they are social, such as when social workers resist adapting to neoliberal management formats (Bjerre, 2020), or people with disability redirect the meaning and goals of public policies (Tagaki, 2020), or migrants deny the reductionist ways in which a Scandinavian welfare state considers their complex cultural backgrounds (Seip, 2020). The communities coming to the fore in this volume and obviously many others, challenge how we make sense in this world, question oppression and bring about social transformations. Increased migration and human mobility (Céspedes & van Alphen, 2020; Gamsakhurdia, 2020) is creating new communities, which transgress traditional space constraints, but share dialogues, affinity, political imagination, the cyberspace and temporality— even if their temporality is short. For example, a community of Syrian refugees crossing the Albanian mountains in the middle of the night, dividing vital tasks among them to survive border control, starvation and heat, to reach their common, yet personal goals, while they share stories of sorrow and dreams for the future. These are strong and concrete communities, perhaps dissolving once they reach the European Union, but likely affecting how the individual members engage in meaning making for the rests of their lives. MAKING SENSE OF OUR ROLE AS ENGAGED ACADEMICS Through the contextualization above, we put forward the significance of communities in understanding political or social transformation. Transforming, multiplying, imagining, or recreating our communities might all be routes for social transformation. Therefore, from a cultural

Introduction  7

psychological point of view, we seek to understand how these transformations might come about and how we can contribute through engaging in communities, with perhaps more creative methods (Glăveanu & Sierra, 2015). How can, for instance, central concepts developed within the interdisciplinarity of cultural psychology guide our actions with the problems out there, in the streets where communities are constructed (Stetsenko, 2018) and demolished? Political, economic, and ecological macrolevel processes, as those we refer to above, are all characterized by many levels of tensions as well as meaning-making processes at the microlevel. “Tensions” and “ambivalence,” as they have been conceptualized in cultural psychology, inspire new and possibly creative meaning making processes (Abbey, 2012; Glăveanu, 2010). Sudden ruptures (Zittoun, 2016) can also radically change our meaning-making. While some changes at the macrolevel, conceived as sudden ruptures, bring about renewed meanings and social transformation processes, others may lead to (and be interpreted as) gradual transitions into new status quo, leading to adjustments and acceptance of hegemonic models and perhaps feelings of powerlessness. With this in mind and wondering about the onset and interplay between community and individual resistance processes, we return to the community of cultural psychologists reacting to the dismissal of colleagues at the University of Aalborg. There was, at one point, delay in moving from agreement to action. Many types of constraints might hinder people’s capacity to engage in creative meaning making or processes of social transformations, such as their positions within symbolic networks, social representations (Zittoun et al., 2003), or extreme levels of ambivalence (Abbey, 2012). Faced with uncertainty, or when experiencing negative affect, in terms of like stress, fear and, anxiety, and so on, people can also favor adapting and then transitioning into new ways of being over engaging in social transformations. The apathy in Western societies mentioned earlier might be an extreme consequence of facing complexity and not knowing how to move forward. What, then, affects the dialectics between such emerging social realities as the ones described above, and the onset of gradual transitions or generation of social struggle or more subtle resistance processes? How we manage to make sense of these tensions and emerging realities plays a role in engaging in action. As we cannot just do this individually, the community becomes vital. CONNECTING MEANING MAKING AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION This volume aims to connect meaning making processes within and between communities to processes of social transformation on meso- and

8  S. NORMANN and F. van ALPHEN

macrolevels. It focuses on how meaning is created out there, in the streets, squares, institutions, in our manifold communities or in the minds and interactions of people on the move, in search for new horizons, or as life-saving measures when people are threatened by wars or ecological disasters. Basically, the authors of the chapters were challenged to engage with a cultural psychology in communities, connoting not studying communities as such, but exploring the meaning making processes taking place in communities assisted by concepts and methodologies derived from cultural psychology. This emphasizes the spatial and social as well as temporal character or meaning making processes. Communities are not always explicitly defined in cultural psychology even if they have an important role to play in social transformsation. Meaning making processes are manifold and implicitly or explicitly connected to communities. Focusing on the psychological developmental aspect of meaning making, social and institutional settings are considered to enable the use and (re)creation of narratives, social representations, and other cultural resources. By setting meaning making in motion, Gillespie and Zittoun (2013) afford this process a spatial as well as a temporal dimension. They conceive of a meaning maker as an experiencing body/ mind moving and developing through institutional and semiotic spaces. When communities are more explicitly defined in the wider social sciences, this is done mainly in terms of space or a shared purpose. Packer (2017) centralizes communities in the mutual constitution between people and their forms of life. That is, on the one hand, its members constitute a community, as they decide upon ways to live together. On the other hand, communities constitute the people living in them, making their forms of life possible. Focusing on ways of life (Rogoff, 2016), the spatial and social aspects of meaning making become visible. Meaning making, in this vein, is central in human development. Creatively generating meaning or appropriating ways of life are transformative for the meaning maker and the immediate environment. The question often is how various meaningmaking processes, from dynamic semiosis to the appropriation of ways of life, are socially transformative. Dealing with tensions, ruptures, resistance, and migration, in short, the meaning making we engage in with others for our own as well as shared purposes, brings communities to the fore. Focusing on these phenomena and, arguably, highly relevant in a world becoming both polarized and interdependent, Stetsenko (2018) reminds us of how Vygotsky’s psychology was embedded in the task of creating a new society. In this vein, the chapters explore how cultural psychology may engage with communities and how people engaging with communities might strengthen their work using cultural psychological concepts. Several scholars working within community psychology responded to our call, contributing perspectives

Introduction  9

and experiences with accompanying communities in their search for social transformations. Some contributors take a sociological stance, while others have accepted the challenge to engage with community as cultural psychologists. Furthermore, anthropological views contribute with refined notions and detailed accounts of cultural meanings emerging in a certain space and time. This rich interdisciplinarity, involving the critical power analyses of community psychologists and the sociological take on structures and processes, allows a kaleidoscopic and potentially transformative view on sociocultural concepts and methodologies. The authors make suggestions about how cultural psychological concepts help to interconnect micro-, meso- and macrolevel processes, allowing to understand how transformation, resistance, expansion of cultural horizons and their contrary movements come about. Several contributions make the value of action research, participant observation and field work for cultural psychology ever clearer. The chapters are divided into the two thematic sections introduced below. RESISTANCE OR TRANSFORMATION WITHIN, TOWARD, AND FROM COMMUNITIES People depend on community in their daily lives or to effectively negotiate or resist in complex social settings. In community, people share an imagination of the future (Jovchelovitch, 2012), enabling social action. Engaging in political discourses, these can be considered as complex semiotic structures, canalizing meanings and guiding people through imaginations, representations, values, either about the past, alternative lives or possible futures (Gillespie & Zittoun, 2013). Yet, people also undermine or transform communities. This section looks into how different theoretical underpinnings can help to understand the creation or restoration of communities and how resistance against inequality comes about (Andersen & Lybæk, 2020; González, 2020; Krzesni & Coulombe, 2020; Tagaki, 2020). How macrostructures might block creative meaning making in situations characterized by tensions is also discussed (Amofah, 2020; Bjerre, 2020). Some of the contributions make suggestions about how cultural psychology can contribute to not only understand the semiotic processes involved, but also connect them to social action. María Fernanda González opens our discussion on how to develop a cultural psychology in communities by introducing the work of Anna Stetsenko. Highlighting the activism in Vygotsky, understanding human and social development as committed to collaborative transformations, Stetsenko (2018) suggests that this activism entails moving out of the ivory

10  S. NORMANN and F. van ALPHEN

tower and into social life so as to participate in transforming it. González (2020) takes up the glove and carries out an analysis of the narratives by women engaging in the flourishing feminist movement in Argentina. Addressing the wider question of how the personal becomes political, she draws the readers’ attention to the fluent movement between personal and collective identity in the narration, the role of emotions and notably to the public space. The plaza or square of the smaller and bigger towns in Argentina is a public meeting point where the activist women gather. There, through participation, the personal clearly becomes political. The plaza is all the more meaningful in Argentina, given the madres and abuelas demanding justice on the square since the last military dictatorship. The locality of the community and the objectives of the community, that have been used separately to define community in the social sciences, merge in the public square. González thus leaves us with the powerful suggestion that to develop a cultural psychology of communities we would better head to the plaza, or at least, make it our center of attention. This is similar to Walter Benjamin (2002) showing the way, as “streets are the dwelling place of the collective” (p. 243). Andreas Andersen and Nikolai Lybæk address the development of community on the fora that communication technologies have enabled. Heading for streets and squares is not the only kind of social movement possible. Online petitions are signed easily, discussions easily engaged with, opinions easily ventilated. Understanding social movement in the social media is complex: what is it concretely and to what does it amount? It does not stand apart from previously existing, more traditionally organized social movements, and it often appears conjointly with mass demonstrations. However, how does social transformation occur in and through this domain of never-ending connections? Beyond the algorithms, what meaning making processes occur when something goes viral? The #MeToo movement that the authors focus on to elaborate their work around the hashtag does not demonstrate the personal becoming political like González (2020), but rather suggests that intricate meaning making processes are going on in which the political becomes personal too and transformation happens individually at the same time that it happens socially or discursively. Line Søberg Bjerre addresses subtle forms of resistance, taking us into the social work practice in Denmark. Reforms in the public system force social care into a purchaser-supplier business model and have urged social workers to make decisions based on supposedly neutral facts emerging from the documentation on each case. Yet, the social work practice resists nomothetic approaches. By neglecting how meaning-making processes actually happen among the professionals, the system creates little suitable tools to avoid ambiguity in how they approach each case. The social workers

Introduction  11

are seduced into believing that they follow systematic approaches, possible faults in interpretations are unlikely to be corrected and vulnerable families at risk might be affected. Bjerre (2020) proposes to learn from cultural psychology’s methodology as an epistemological cycle, so that the social workers can work more holistically and make explicit what they are already doing in practice. She describes a highly affective and intersubjective process of meaning making around a case that social workers engage in together. Masakuni Tagaki allows us to further study the implementation of public policies, focusing on an oddly understudied topic in cultural psychology, given Vygotsky’s writings on disability. Tagaki (2020) introduces an emerging community of people with disabilities in the Japanese municipality of Yao. Inspired by cultural psychology and sense making theories, he engages with this setting as an action researcher to help sort out the limitations and challenges faced in residential meetings, organized as part of Japan’s public policy directed at people with disabilities. Tagaki shows us how the emerging community allowed people to redirect their goals from the Yao municipality’s task-oriented goals, toward goals of constructing mutual affinity and solidarity with other vulnerable groups, such as the elderly or migrants. Thus, he contributes to understanding how communities work and simultaneously how a disability identity is formed. While movement between and within communities generally inspires meaning making, individual and social transformations of life forms, frictions and tensions can also arise inhibiting such developments. Seth Amofah investigated the tensions that arise when international NGOs move into Ghanaian communities for poverty alleviation. Instead of engaging with each other, the actors’ worldviews, even when operating in the same space, are resistant to changes. Power differences run through many layers, from global forums through aid agencies, NGO staff and local staff. This chapter shows that the potential of tensions to foster creative meaning making and bridges between communities can be corrupted when these escalate, and that top-down approaches and asymmetrical power relations might shut down dialogue. Furthermore, “culture,” can become a scapegoat for not addressing power asymmetries in the field, explaining the tensions in terms of symmetrical differences. Amofah (2020) suggests that the efforts to improve the situation ought to include sociocultural training of arriving staff, so they can act in ways less damaging to local relations. However, is this enough? Or might standardized development programs, even when they are supposed to battle inequality, in themselves become part of the problem when top-down approaches restrict a polyphasic world (Jovchelovitch & Hawlina, 2018)? David Krzesni and Simon Coulombe develop a program that echoes Vygotsky’s academic praxis headed for social transformation (Stetsenko, 2018). The authors explore Marx’s notions of alienation, but also

12  S. NORMANN and F. van ALPHEN

Durkheim’s notions of deviance and notions of culture developed within the Frankfurt school. They engage with the question of how, as researchers, we can accompany marginalized communities in their struggles. The authors contribute with suggestions about how cultural psychologists can accompany marginalized communities in making meaning out of injustices, with a clear goal of achieving social transformation. They develop a notion of “restoration of purpose,” deriving partly from their Marxist lectures on alienation, which enables a dialogue with Stetsenko’s (2018) emphasis on restoring Vygotsky’s commitment to social transformation in cultural psychology. The dialogue between their exploration into the revolutionary meanings of deviance and Vygotsky’s dialectical and historical emphases needs further development. For example, how would the focus on personal projects, deviance and alienation make sense within Amerindian cultures (Guimarães, 2011)? In addition, what can “restoration of purpose” mean in a cultural psychological take on time irreversibility? Definitively, these authors invite further collaboration between cultural and community psychology. Before moving on to the next section, the commentary of Sarah Awad (2020) brings in elements from her own research on the revolutionary process in Cairo around the year 2011, to explore how the previous chapters engage with processes of meaning making and change, on individual, community, and society levels. Change is both dynamic and processual and it occurs on all these levels at the same time, as these levels mutually influence each other. At the right time, and confronted with ruptures or other social events, individuals can re-signify the known and imagine other, different worlds. MEANING MAKING IN BETWEEN DIFFERENT COMMUNITIES The second section looks into how movement between several communities affects meaning making. Migration, simultaneously belonging to different communities and other kinds of border work, typically arising in what anthropologists have called intercultural settings, are explored. People move between settings of social practice and this is typically approached in terms of cultural arrests, expansion of horizons, or integration. Many of the contributions in this section problematize this and attempt to answer the question of how cultural psychology can deal with these processes without reifying different cultures and without losing sight of the power differences at play. As Mahalingam (2006) and Bhatia (2007) have suggested, the difference is not simply “cultural.” Migration occurs in scenarios containing colonial legacies, imperial desires, socioeconomic inequality, and racism.

Introduction  13

Although significant ruptures and personal meaning making also happen in case of moving fewer kilometers away (Zittoun et al., 2018), cultural psychological analyses should consider that some migrants are expected to change more than others and that the otherness of some communities is considered greater than others. How do such power dynamics affect cultural expansion? Imagining the other or the own community has been within the scope of cultural psychology for some years (de Saint-Laurent et al., 2018). In this volume, not only imagined communities appear at either end of human mobility trajectories. Migrant communities and international networks of colleagues, friends and family are perhaps most significant to the migrant. In between more or less imagined communities, there are strong interpersonal ties, constituting new communities and potential transformations. The chapter by Hildegunn Seip thematically connects the two sections of this volume. On the one hand, it emphasizes the strength of an emerging intercultural community through an art project, influencing the wellbeing and sense of agency of its participants. On the other hand, it shows that even though this project could enhance the stereotyping or reification of cultural differences, the participating youths half-jokingly resist these mechanisms. One participant claims her agency, disagreeing with an academic who criticized the project’s Western, neoliberal, multicultural, and slightly paternalizing discourse. Seip makes an important contribution by interweaving community and cultural psychology, showing the relevance of community for meaning making and considering meaning making in connection to present and future wellbeing. She opens the discussion on what “culture” and therefore the “intercultural” mean in this interdisciplinary space. Informed by social anthropology, Seip suggests that though in cultural psychology there is much ambivalence toward the term “culture,” the meaning making agent in certain settings uses the term all the time. In line with anthropologist Fredrik Barth (1998), she draws the attention to the boundary work performed, or cultural categories used, by the research participants themselves. How they construct and negotiate these boundaries is what interests us when talking about “meaning making in between communities,” as does the negotiation between the wishes of parents and their own needs, or between the project’s cultural categories, and their own multiple experiences. In meaning making, actual interpersonal connections as well as imagined cultural conglomerates play a role and might even be hard to pull apart. Seip reminds us that for social scientists the trick in studying these processes is to approach them without reified notions of culture in mind. The chapter by Eva Céspedes and Floor van Alphen focuses on the construction of the migration process by migrants themselves. Unlike previous studies that have focused on the identities constructed and negotiated by

14  S. NORMANN and F. van ALPHEN

immigrants, the study presented in this chapter focuses on the migration project as conceived and performed by the migrant. The authors borrow the notion of migration project from sociology. It also resonates with Krzesni and Coulombe (2020), who center their proposal on the personal project that can restore the sense of agency of people in marginalized communities. Intertwining this with a qualitative narrative approach, Céspedes and van Alphen show how there is not just a negotiation between imagined communities, but also with voices of significant others, which are studied by Gamsakhurdia (2020) as well. This makes migration networks appear in the migrants’ narratives. Contact with family members back home continues to characterize the migration project throughout its duration, while new interpersonal connections are made. This advances our understanding of migration as a dynamic, ongoing, and nonlinear process. The chapter sensitizes the current work on migration by de-centering Europe and calls for more careful work on migration under adverse conditions. Further research would benefit from considering the difference in the agency that forced migration supposes. As suggested by Krzesni and Coulombe (2020) as well as Seip (2020), a project can restore the sense of agency and might be meaningful for refugees. Supporting meaning making processes among migrants who have had adverse experiences is something that cultural psychologists seeking positive transformations could engage with. Muhammed Abdulai’s chapter problematizes talent mobility, bringing to our attention the contradicting and ambivalent ways in which the global north’s academic institutions receive students from the global south. While walls are set up to stop human beings escaping from wars, violence or ecological crises, skilled students are sought to generate human capital and solve issues of an aging population in Europe. Studying how Sub-Saharan African students are received with ambivalence in Estonian Universities, he finds that there is othering even in universities, where critical thought should be produced. Social representations of African students as less hard-working are alarming, as is the finding that the veil of Muslim girls generates tension for a lecturer who is interviewed. Generally, the chapter demonstrates, like Amofah (2020), that power relations and colonial legacies might make open systems of thought collapse. On the brighter side, this chapter shows that sociocultural learning and human development can be possible. The author calls for training of university staff to make the communication flow better. We could not agree more. The chapter by Vladimer Lado Gamsakhurdia illustrates his concept of proculturation, the meaning making process of those who move into new contexts. Through a single case study, he studies the meaning making of a Georgian exchange student in Germany. He shows how the student negotiates new experiences with his homeland values, and in particular, his mother’s voice, ultimately achieving self-expansion. While Céspedes and

Introduction  15

van Alphen (2020) look at how migrants invoke significant voices of others in reconstructing the onset of their migration project, Gamsakhurdia illustrates that these significant others are in fact part of the self-structure, guiding the individual meaning making during migration. Questioning the acculturation concept, Gamsakhurdia shows that humans connect their previous, present, and future possible life forms, into complex and open meaning making systems. Making an interesting connection with Bjerre (2020), he reminds us that our minds are not nomic but normative. We construe meaning through dialectical synthesis and the interplay of many factors. However, self-expansion comes with ambiguity and in some cases the student displays the opposite: self-preservation. In line with Stetsenko (2018), we could ask if it is possible to consider proculturation without its sociohistorical situatedness. Can we expect the same self-expansion in people, who, in contrast to this student, do not migrate to expand their world, but rather escape from adverse conditions? When encountering hostility, do their selves expand or do they engage in self-preservation strengthening their social identity at the expense of sociocultural learning? Can self-elimination occur? Self-expansion might be hindered by adverse conditions, particularly being isolated from communities. The chapter by Mariana García Palacios demonstrates the immense value of thorough and ongoing fieldwork. She has followed the trajectories of children growing up in a neighborhood in Buenos Aires where continuous ethnic and religious boundary work is done between the ethnic Qom and Dogshe, between the Evangelio and the catholic “other.” Few studies allow such an immersion and refined analysis of meaning making within and between communities. Moreover, García Palacios gives her work an elaborate developmental psychological dimension, indicating that the most sensitive work on communities is done in the field and over time, seeking interdisciplinary connections. The notion of the intercultural space is developed to such a degree that no simple categorical view of culture is still standing after her analysis. This resonates with Valsiner (2019), as the concept of culture is no longer necessary if one studies the complexity of human development, and meaning making cannot be captured within one term or variable. Like most other contributors in this volume, the author makes a strong case for intensified research in the field and with the many actors found there. This section is concluded by a comment from Danilo da Silva Guimarães (2020), bringing his experiences with developing an ongoing collaborative academic network that observes, reflects and participates in complex interethnic contexts in Brazil. Ethical questions and epistemological tensions are entangled in our research processes and cultural psychology needs to further address the multiplication of possibilities for reflecting on ourselves while engaging with communities.

16  S. NORMANN and F. van ALPHEN

FINAL REMARKS Ranging from work clearly positioned within a scholarship engaging with social transformations and political processes (González, 2020; Tagaki; 2020; Krzesni & Coulombe, 2020; Andersen & Lybæk, 2020), to contributions treating the subtleties of meaning making processes and their resistances (e.g., Bjerre, 2020; García Palacios, 2020; Seip, 2020), the contributions in this volume allow us to recognize the importance of communities for cultural psychology. Understanding how people on the move engage in manifold (imagined and concrete) dialogues with different communities (Gamsakhurdia, 2020; Céspedes & Alphen, 2020), can help us overcome essentialized definitions in research but also in fields were transformations take place (Amofah, 2020; Abdulai, 2020). García Palacios shows us how ethnographic, long- term fieldwork is key to understanding the complex interactions within overlapping communities and observing change. We actually see how each of the authors is somehow positioned in the field. Indeed, our research questions and how we move into the field, emerge from our own endeavors to make meaning and in meeting multiple communities. According to Stetsenko (2008), “local communities can no longer be thought-about as separate entities with clear borders and boundaries.” In this vein, as academics we too take part in diverse communities and this acknowledgment might benefit developing critical and politically committed research (Stetsenko, 2018). Some of the communities we meet ground their knowledge construction in values and practices that are not always the same as those in western psychology (Guimarães, 2020). Tensions in meaning making within and between our academic communities, related to the multiple communities we move through, can generate creative research questions and direct research further. On the other hand, power plays enhancing resistance to change and acts of self-preservation in locked academic circuits can also affect where research is headed, trapping us in concepts for long periods of time (Valsiner, 2012). This makes it very tempting to smash the kaleidoscope, as Benjamin suggests. We nevertheless see how the cultural psychological field and its constituents are on the move, a movement that is social transformational as it is migratory. With climate change as a backdrop, our interdependency across this planet is clear. Only through reconstructing a broader sense of solidarity and an understanding of the commons, a restoration of purpose and collective meaning making toward social transformations (Awad, 2020) and positive values such as social justice is possible. We believe that the contributions in this volume, in all their internal diversity, clearly demonstrate that, community is something to be further engaged with in cultural psychology.

Introduction  17

REFERENCES Abbey, E. (2012). Ambivalence and its transformations. In J. Valsiner (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of culture and psychology (pp. 989–997). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195396430.013.0048 Abdulai, M. (2020). Exploring the tensions and possible transformations in talent mobility to Estonian universities. In F. van Alphen & S. Normann (Eds.), Cultural psychology in communities: Tensions and transformations. Information Age Publishing. Amofah, S. (2020). Maneuvering around conflicts between international development NGOs and local communities towards poverty alleviation in Ghana. In F. van Alphen & S. Normann (Eds.), Cultural psychology in communities: Tensions and transformations. Information Age Publishing. Andersen, A. A., & Lybæk, N. S. K. (2020). The performative momentum of the hashtag. An examination of the #metoo movement. In F. van Alphen & S. Normann (Eds.), Cultural psychology in communities: Tensions and transformations. Information Age Publishing. Awad, S. H. (2016). The identity process in times of rupture: Narratives from the Egyptian revolution. Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 4(1), 128–141. Awad, S. H. (2020). Experiencing change: Interrelations between individual and social transformations. In F. van Alphen & S. Normann (Eds.), Cultural psychology in communities: Tensions and transformations. Information Age Publishing. Bhatia, S. (2007). Rethinking culture and identity in psychology: Towards a transnational cultural psychology. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 27, 301–321. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0091298. Barth, F. (1998). Ethnic groups and boundaries: The social organization of culture difference. Long Waveland Press. (Original work published 1969). Benjamin, W. (1985). Central Park (Loyd Spencer with Mark Harrington, Trans.). New German Critique, 34, 32–58. (Original work published 1939). Benjamin, W. (2002). The Arcades Project. Belknap Press (Original published in 1938). Bjerre, L. S. (2020). Meaning making processes in a professional community of social workers. In F. van Alphen & S. Normann (Eds.), Cultural psychology in communities: Tensions and transformations. Information Age Publishing. Branco, A., & Valsiner, J. (2010). Towards cultural psychology of affective processes: Semiotic regulation of dynamic fields. Estudios de Psicología, 31(3), 243–251. https://doi.org/10.1174/021093910793154411 Céspedes, E., & van Alphen, F. (2020). The migration project. Studying the narrative construction of migrant mobility in a non-linear way. In F. van Alphen & S. Normann (Eds.), Cultural psychology in communities: Tensions and transformations. Information Age Publishing. Chaudhary, N., Hviid, P., Marsico, G., & Waag Villadsen, J. (Eds.). (2017). Resistance in everyday life. Constructing cultural experiences. Springer Nature. Crary, J. (1990). Techniques of the observer: On vision and modernity in the nineteenth century. MIT Press. https://djaballahcomps.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/ crary-jonathan-e28093-techniques-of-the-observer-on-vision-and-modernity-in-the-nineteenth-century-1992.pdf

18  S. NORMANN and F. van ALPHEN de Saint-Laurent, C., Obradović, S., & Carriere, K. R. (Eds.). (2018). Imagining collective futures: Perspectives from social, cultural and political psychology. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76051-3 Dietz, G. (2009). Multiculturalism, interculturality and diversity in education: An anthropological approach. Waxmann. Gamsakhurdia, V. L. (2020). Self-expansion through proculturation: Semiotic movement towards curvilinear development. In F. van Alphen & S. Normann (Eds.), Cultural psychology in communities: Tensions and transformations. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. García Palacios, M. (2020). “Apart from being taught, you teach yourself.” Appropriation and religious trajectories among children and youth in a Toba/ Qom neighborhood of Buenos Aires. In F. van Alphen & S. Normann (Eds.), Cultural psychology in communities: Tensions and transformations. Information Age Publishing. Gillespie, A., & Zittoun, T. (2013). Meaning making in motion: Bodies and minds moving through institutional and semiotic structures. Culture & Psychology, 19(4), 518–532. Glăveanu, V. P. (2010). Principles for a cultural psychology of creativity. Culture & Psychology, 16(2), 147–163. Glăveanu, V. P., & Sierra, Z. (2015). Creativity and epistemologies of the South. Culture & Psychology, 21(3), 340–358. González, M. F. (2020). Constituting childbirth activism in Argentina: A study of place, identity and emotions. In F. van Alphen & S. Normann (Eds.), Cultural psychology in communities: Tensions and transformations. Information Age Publishing. Guimarães, D. S. (2011). Amerindian anthropology and cultural psychology: Crossing boundaries and meeting otherness’ worlds. Culture & psychology, 17(2), 139–157. Guimarães, D. S. (2020). Cultural psychology, communities and the construction of excluding spaces: the production of foreigners. In F. van Alphen & S. Normann (Eds.), Cultural psychology in communities: Tensions and transformations. Information Age Publishing. Hale, C. R. (2006). Más que un indio...: Racial ambivalence and neoliberal multiculturalism in Guatemala. SAR Press. Jovchelovitch, S. (2012). Narrative, memory and social representations: A conversation between history and social psychology. Integrative psychological and behavioral science, 46(4), 440–456. Jovchelovitch, S., & Hawlina, H. (2018). Utopias and world-making: Time, transformation and the collective imagination. In C. de Saint-Laurent, S. Obradović & K. R. Carriere (Eds.), Imagining collective futures (pp. 129–151). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76051-3 Krzesni, D., & Coulombe, S. (2020). Restoration of purpose: A goal focused approach to cultural transformation and wellbeing promotion among marginalized communities. In F. van Alphen & S. Normann (Eds.), Cultural psychology in communities: Tensions and transformations. Information Age Publishing. Mahalingam, R. (2006). Cultural psychology of immigrants. Routledge.

Introduction  19 Nelson, G., & Prilleltensky, I. (Eds.). (2010). Community psychology: In pursuit of liberation and well-being. Macmillan International Higher Education. Packer, M. J. (2017). The science of qualitative research. Cambridge University Press. Pinheiro Dias, J., Vanzolini, M., Sztutman, R., Marras, S., Borba, M., & Schavelzon, S. (2016). Uma ciência triste é aquela em que não se dança. Conversações com Isabelle Stengers [A sad science is one in which you don’t dance. Conversations with Isabelle Stengers]. Revista de Antropologia, 59(2), 155–186. Rehbein, B. (2018). Critical theory after the rise of the Global South. In A. K. Giri (Ed.), Social theory and Asian dialogues (pp. 49–67). Palgrave Macmillan. Rogoff, B. (2016). Culture and participation: A paradigm shift. Current Opinion in Psychology, 8, 182–189. Seip, H. M. T. (2020). Recognition as a catalyst for agency. Experiences from an intercultural art project for young people. In F. van Alphen & S. Normann (Eds.), Cultural psychology in communities: Tensions and transformations. Information Age Publishing. Stetsenko, A. (2008). From relational ontology to transformative activist stance on development and learning: expanding Vygotsky’s (CHAT) project. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 2(3), 471–491. Stetsenko, A. (2018). Research and activist projects of resistance: The ethical-political foundations for a transformative ethico-onto-epistemology. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lcsi.2018.04.002 Tagaki, M. (2020). Making meaning of disability in residents’ meetings for municipal welfare policy. In F. van Alphen, & S. Normann (Eds.), Cultural psychology in communities: Tensions and transformations. Information Age Publishing. Valsiner, J. (2012). Culture in psychology: A renewed encounter of inquisitive minds. In J. Valsiner (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of culture and psychology. Oxford Library of Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195396430.013.0001 Valsiner, J. (2019). Cultural psychology as a theoretical project [La psicología cultural como proyecto teórico]. Estudios de Psicología, 40(1), 10–47. https:// doi.org/10.1080/02109395.2018.1560023 Watts, R. J., & Serrano-García, I. (2003). The quest for a liberating community psychology: An overview. American Journal of Community Psychology, 31(1), 73–78. Wagoner, B., Moghaddam, F. M., & Valsiner, J. (Eds.). (2018). The psychology of radical social change: From rage to revolution. Cambridge University Press. Walsh, C. (2010). Development as Buen Vivir: Institutional arrangements and (de) colonial entanglements. Development 53(1), 15–21. Zittoun, T. (2016). A sociocultural psychology of the life-course. Social psychological review, 18(1), 6–17. Zittoun, T., Duveen, G., Gillespie, A., Ivinson, G., & Psaltis, C. (2003). The use of symbolic resources in developmental transitions. Culture & Psychology, 9(4), 415–448. Zittoun, T., Levitan, D., & Cangiá, F. (2018). A sociocultural approach to mobile families: A case study. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 24(4), 424–432.

SECTION I RESISTANCE OR TRANSFORMATION WITHIN, TOWARD, AND FROM COMMUNITIES

CHAPTER 2

CONSTITUTING CHILDBIRTH ACTIVISM IN ARGENTINA A Study of Place, Identity, and Emotions María Fernanda González

During the last years, feminist movements have massively taken the streets and the social media, both locally and globally. If we flick through the social media and newspapers we come across news items and demonstration that show the strength of these movements. To exemplify this, but with no intention of providing an exhaustive overview, the #MeToo movement came up in 2015 on Twitter with the aim of reporting sexual violence and harassment and spread from the United States to 85 countries in no time, becoming a global movement. Other mobilizations have managed to occupy the public spaces, both symbolically and vitally. International Women’s Day on March 8th has been acquiring new meanings linked to the feminist struggle. In 2019 there were huge demonstrations around the world and a consumer and care strike. In Argentina, there is a strong feminist movement that has been defined as a horizontal social space, decentralized, and diversified with a widespread territorial diffusion (Masson, 2007). The Argentine feminism has

Cultural Psychology in Communities: Tensions and Transformations, pp. 23–41 Copyright © 2020 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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occupied a prominent social and political role since the movements against femicides and gender violence like Ni Una Menos [Not one woman less!] started in June 2015. During the first call for action, mobilizations and protests took place in more than 80 cities across Argentina, in several cities of the South-American region and even in Europe. The claim for the fulfilment and expansion of sexual and reproductive rights was also present over the last years. In 2004, the bill for “respected childbirth” was passed (Argentine Act 25929) and it grants a number of rights to mothers and their children at the moment of birth. In 2016, due to the censorship imposed on a young woman who was breastfeeding in public, piquetetazos— breastfeeding protests—were staged in several cities and towns organized through the social media. In 2018, the committed and sustained feminist activism managed to take the debate for the right to legal, safe, and free abortion to the Argentine Congress for the first time. Thousands of women with their green handkerchiefs—symbol of the National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe and Free Abortion—took over the streets, parks, and public places like universities, hospitals, and schools. All these movements place the claims for a violence-free life, reproductive, and sexual rights in the public sphere and political space. By means of shared actions, these movements aim at modifying a social and historical reality understood as unfair and oppressive. Now, how are these shared actions shaped? How are the personal and the politically collective dimensions articulated in these activist movements? This chapter proposes two complementary objectives. On the one hand, it aims to offer a theoretical articulation between cultural psychology, the wider social sciences, research about social movements and feminism, searching for concepts that help to understand human behavior in community contexts. On the other hand, it introduces an empirical study about childbirth activism in Entre Ríos, Argentina. Related to both objectives, some conclusions are drawn concerning transformative activist action, its articulation in a common place, the construction of new identities and emotional work through participation. ACTING FOR SOCIAL CHANGE One of the basic premises of cultural psychology is the joint construction of individual and culture (Valsiner, 2009). In this sense, human-beings’ everyday actions build collective ways of living that are personal and idiosyncratic at the same time (Rosa, 2018). Human actions follow a trajectory that implies a simultaneous double dimension: while transforming the social reality, they also transform the person or agent of the action, who is a social subject.

Constituting Childbirth Activism in Argentina   25

The classical theorists of sociocultural psychology, such as Vygotsky, Luria, and Leontiev, held that the human being, or person, does not exist prior to or separated from transformative processes of engagement with the world. Following these ideas, Sawchuk and Stetsenko (2008, p. 343) affirm that “the process of changing the world—that is, the practical, collaborative endeavor of people who create themselves as they create their world—was understood as the foundational reality of human development and human nature itself.” From this viewpoint, different institutions, practices and norms, symbols and artifacts are the result of the joint action of individual and culture and of the individual within that culture, in different temporalities. However, according to Stetsenko (2018), the central aspect of human action would be its capacity to transform reality, with the resulting change in the own agency. Thus, the search for change and social transformation is placed, at the core of the human being; this is what turns human being into personhood. This transforming agency brings forth a Transformative Activist Stance (TAS), grounded in social and community actions and producing changes both in the world and the agent. At the same time, there is a permanent tension in the social field characterized by conflicts, contradictions and power disputes. Human action develops mainly in this kind of scene, rather than those characterized by stability and inertia. This happens, for example, in families when there are intergenerational differences related to ideological positionings and perceptions of the course of social change (González & Rosa, 2015). It can also appear in groups of young people who engage in conflict over actions with ethical or civic dimensions (Rosa & González, 2013). Also it appears on a bigger scale, in national communities where discrepancies exist about the ways to narrate their past (Carretero et al., 2012; González & Carretero, 2013; van Alphen & Carretero, 2015) and about acting democratically and civically (Rosa & González, 2018). In all these realities there is a simultaneously personal and social experience that is translated into emotional evaluations, interpretations, positionings and narratives, shaping an ethical and dialogical self (Rosa, 2018; Rosa & González, 2018). Activist commitment has also been considered as part of identity and civic competence. Haste (2004, 2009) considers that civic identity is developed in experiencing social and community participation and in the development of perceiving the self as a person that embodies certain values in her/his concrete performance. According to Haste, a basic civic competence would be the ability to build social and interpersonal networks that enable to find and maintain the own community. This implies constructing relations of reciprocity and reflecting on the different forms of otherness and the conflicts and commitments generated. Meanwhile, the role of emotions in social and community life is central. The civic and community commitment has an affective dimension: emotions motivate civic action giving it

26  M. F. GONZÁLEZ

a moral sense and contributing to the maintenance of the own identity (Haste, 2009; Rosa, 2018). As can be observed, contributions from cultural psychology allow us to see human action as situated and inherently social and cultural. In some cases, this action has the aim of the explicit search for social change, a moral and civic commitment. Now, what happens when this search for transformation is performed together with other people who have similar purposes, that is, when it is shared? In the following paragraphs, social science’s contributions, research about social movements and feminism are revised in relation to the concepts of social movements and community. The questions guiding this revision are: how are social movements constituted? What are their characteristics and what is their relation with communities? How are commonalities built in contexts of activist action? Thus, we aim at building conceptual bridges between cultural psychology and studies on social movements and feminism. Social Movements and Community: Discussing the Characteristics of Localization, Identity, and Emotions In the social sciences, there is extensive work aiming at defining and characterizing social movements and defining their relationship with the communities. Some authors define social movements as informal networks of interaction among a plurality of individuals, groups, engaged in political or cultural conflict on the basis of shared collective identities, and gathered around the purpose of transformation and social change (Della Porta & Diani, 2015; Diani, 2004). Others discuss the relevance of focusing on community in terms of place or shared geography and community in terms of shared interests like race, ethnicity, and genre (Mayo, 2000). Other authors, like Gläser (2004), Taylor and Whittier (1992) maintain that social movements share characteristics with communities. I do not aim at a deep exhaustive revision of these social scientific debates but rather at offering a critical revision that enables to identify dimensions and characteristics analytically and theoretically relevant for the study of childbirth activism. Traditionally, in the social sciences, communities have been defined based on two characteristics: a place or location (a neighborhood, an area) that the community is linked to or shared interests. In fact, the term community has its roots in the Latin word commūnitās, commūnitātis. It is a feminine noun meaning: (1) a. A group of people living in the same locality and under the same government. b. The district or locality in which such a group lives. (2) a. A group of people having common interests, b. A group viewed as forming a distinct segment of society (Community, n.d.).

Constituting Childbirth Activism in Argentina   27

These definitions can offer opportunities to understand the activisms of social movements, however, they are limited if we consider that the territorial dimension helps to study the dynamics established inside and outside communities and, together with this, in social movements. For example, Purdue et al. (2004) considered the territorial dimension in studying the civic movements in two U.K. cities and identified the dynamics of alliances among groups and actors who had similar or shared goals. Meanwhile, Laval and Dardot (2015) showed that the relationships and tensions between activisms and institutions, cultural and ideological systems in struggles for the environment, are usually linked to a specific territory, such as the case of the struggle for water in Cochabamba, Bolivia. However, on the other hand, considering the territory an element of community cohesion can conceal a romantic view of community solidarity, which sidesteps the belonging to a local community as a potential source of tensions, social control and even oppression (Massey, 1994). For this reason, when studying activism and social movements, the geographic dimension should be considered a symbolic element under social construction, in which tensions and fights for power, typical of any social action, are expressed (Mayo, 2000). Another essential element when revising the concept of localization is the current impact of social networks and the media as artifacts breaking the traditional time-space coordinates and continuously “face to face” interactions (Castells, 1997). In this sense, different studies have shown the impact of cyberactivism strategies, especially in feminist activism building networks and actions that link the local and global sphere (Mendes et al., 2018, 2019; Olson, 2016) The idea of a community as a social group sharing interests and beliefs is supported by several social theorists (Mayo, 2000). However, disagreements arise when efforts are made to show how the common ground is built and what roles participation and collective identity play. As explained by Laval and Dardot (2015) if the intention is not to essentialize what is common, it is necessary to observe how practical action makes things become common. Following Aristotle, these authors hold that the pooling activity makes the common ground exist in a political community. Also, Mayo asserts that communities are not simply the consequence of shared interest or shared properties, but, most importantly, of shared meanings, and these meanings are commonly built through joint struggles. In the social movements, the practice can be shaped as political assembly deliberations, protest actions, disseminating information about rights, etcetera. All of these forms imply participation, even though they may involve different levels of commitment. According to Laval and Dardot, it is the participation itself creating the sense of belonging to the community and not the other way around. Participation in this kind of actions would create the conditions for the appearance of a “we,” and enables the participants to

28  M. F. GONZÁLEZ

experience situations that increase awareness as well as processes of reflection and meta-reflection. The practice also develops in the tension between the individual and the collective, that is, between the individual processes, discursively declared through “I” and the shared processes expressed by the discursive “we.” Nevertheless, other authors such as Diani (2004), Della Porta and Diani (2015) understand that the identity dimension has a fundamental role in defining, maintaining, and implementing social movement. According to these authors, the formation of a social movement depends on the creation of a collective identity, because this identity establishes the boundaries of a social movement. Feminist scholars add to this discussion by highlighting the centrality of the gender concept in the emergence, development, and structuring of social movements, particularly feminism and the LGTBI movement. In these cases, the identity aspects adopt a strong political sense and value. The processes increasing —individual and collective—awareness about social and historical situations of inequality and injustice are translated into a primary social psychological dynamic of mobilization (Wulff et al., 2015) and in the construction of a collective identity (Bernstein, 2008; Bernstein & Olsen, 2009). When studying the communities of lesbian feminists, Taylor and Whittier (1992) defined collective identity as the shared definition of a group that derives from members’ common interest, experiences and solidarity. One of the dimensions of this type of identity is the political consciousness, which defines and shapes the strategic actions to challenge and change the status quo. According to Bernstein (2008), the creation of a collective identity is the result of identity work that involves internal and external struggles and challenges. As shown in his work, a collective identity conjoins the activist´s experience, ideology and emotions and is, at the same time, historically, materially, and organizationally located. Furthermore, she points out interesting dilemmas existing within social movements, as the very definition of generic collective identity tends to be disputed. All this shows that the identity dimension within social movements is central to understand how the movements are formed, how they choose goals and implement political strategies. Both the process of creating a collective identity linked to participation as a possibility to build a sense of belonging and to a definition of “who we are” seem to be fundamental in a social movement. At the same time, feminist contributions point out that this identity dimension is part of the political consciousness developed within the movements, and for this reason, it is closely linked to the search for social change and strategies of empowerment. Lastly, another concept that helps to understand the activism in social movements is emotion. As asserted by Wulff et al. (2015), emotions are crucial to build a collective identity and may play different roles in implementing

Constituting Childbirth Activism in Argentina   29

political strategies and in the ways of creating community. As mentioned before, the movements produce condensing symbols and rhetoric oriented also to provoke and to construct various types of emotional responses. For example, some studies show how diseases closely linked to gender subordination like depression have motivated the formation of the women´s health movement (Wulff et et., 2015). In a different vein, some authors have mentioned emotional culture alluding to the appropriate ways in which movement participants should express and manage emotions in different situations and emotional habitus as the “socially constituted, prevailing ways of feeling and emoting, as well as the embodied axiomatic understandings and norms about feelings and their expression” (Gould, 2009, p. 10). It has been found that some activist actions are performed when there are emotional opportunities, that is, when extra-movement contexts are favorable and less reactive to activist demands. Lastly, some work has shown the mobilization potential of emotions like anger. Reger (2004) elucidates how feminist consciousness-raising groups empower women to transform personal emotions of hopelessness, frustration and anger into a sense of injustice that promotes collective action. Other work (Hercus, 1999) finds that indignation tends to be habitually expressed as a reaction to unfairness in feminist collectives, which results in an emotional struggle to maintain the supporting bonds between them and also with other persons surrounding them, like their partners, family, and coworkers. This author points out that taking part in events and action within the feminist movement reinforces the positive emotions linked to the act of “being feminist” and provides an emotional boost to the participants. The theoretical concepts discussed help us to understand and clarify the processes of constituting activism in the dimensions of localization, identity, and emotion. EMPIRICAL STUDY The current research has focused on studying the practices and trajectories of women who are part of activist groups, favoring respected childbirth, and opposing obstetric violence (OV) in the province of Entre Ríos, Argentina. Act 25.929 was passed in this country in 2004, determining the rights of women and children at childbirth. Among them is the right to be treated as healthy person, avoiding excessive medical interventions, the right of the mother to be accompanied by a person she chooses at the moment of labor, and so on. The implementation is still very irregular in different healthcare centers—both in the public and private sectors—in Argentina (Quatrocchi, 2019). Meanwhile, Act 26.485—for integral protection to prevent, penalize, and eliminate violence against women in those spheres where their interpersonal relations are developed—deals with obstetric

30  M. F. GONZÁLEZ

violence as an instance of gender violence. The OV is inflicted by healthcare staff on women’s bodies and their reproductive processes and involves dehumanization, abusive use of medicine and pathological treatment of the physiological processes linked to pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum stages (Castrillo, 2016; Sadler et al., 2016). Female activist groups took part in the enactment of both acts, as it has happened in other countries with the elaboration of health protocols favoring respected childbirth (Lorenzo, 2012; Villarmea et al., 2016). Nowadays, activist movements focus on actions to report OV and to claim the right to respected childbirth, in accordance with the law (Quatrocchi, 2019). These groups have established new alliances with the feminist movement in Argentina, demanding the extension and respect of sexual and reproductive rights, including the right to legal, safe, and free abortion. METHODOLOGY A qualitative study was carried out, with the objective to describe the practices of the activist groups and the biographies of those participants who take part in groups fighting for sexual and reproductive rights—especially that of respected childbirth and against obstetric violence—in the province of Entre Ríos, Argentina. The study took place between February 2017 and December 2018. In the initial stage, a mapping of actors and networks was done, a methodology widely used (Villasante Prieto et al., 2012). This resulted in the identification of five groups supporting respected childbirth in different cities of the Entre Ríos province. Next, the activities of the groups were observed (through participant and nonparticipant observations) and some group members were interviewed in-depth. The duration of the observations was varied, with an average of two hours. The interviews focused on two main dimensions: organizational (description of the activities, organization, and history of the group) and biographic (the activist trajectory of each interviewee). The interviews lasted for an average of an hour. All the material was recorded in video or audio, and then transcribed for analysis. In this chapter, we present the data of two groups: the Collective of the Square (Colectiva de la Plaza) from the city of Colón and the Multisectoral Women’s Group (Multisectorial de Mujeres) from the city of Gualeguay. These two groups have been chosen because they share characteristics: (a) they are relatively small groups, with the active and ongoing participation of about 10–20 women, (b) they both started their activities in 2017, due to the social mobilization that was triggered by the femicide of student Micaela García; (c) they both perform their activities in small cities of Entre Ríos; the city of Gualeguay has a population of 45,000 and Colon has 25,000

Constituting Childbirth Activism in Argentina   31

inhabitants. The province of Entre Ríos is situated in the central-eastern part of Argentina and has a population of 250,000. Table 2.1 summarizes the methods for the collection of data, by means of the Data Generation Time Line (Darley, 2018) and the methods used. Table 2.1. Methods for Data Collection Group/City

Observations/Activities

Interviews

Multisectoral Women’s Group, Gualeguay

Assembly 20/08/2017

Interview with W.

Assembly 14/04/2018

Interview with P.

Activity for respected childbirth in the local hospital 17/05/2018

Interview with V.

Activity for Women’s day 8/03/18.

Interview with I.

Meeting “Ni Una Menos” 3/06/2018.

Interview with M.J.

Collective of the Square, Colón

Assembly 13/06/2018

Interview with C.

Interview with F. Interview with P.

ANALYSIS The elaboration of categories and the analysis itself have been carried out following an abductive double-way procedure between the empirical material and the theoretical elements of localization, identity and emotion presented before. This procedure allows to establish relationships between the particular and the general, elaborating categories that demonstrate relations and interrelations between the discursive material under analysis and the theoretical elements (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The abductive process allows to focus on new elements resulting from these interrelations (Samaja, 2005) without using theoretical elements that function a priori nor focusing exclusively on the inductive analysis. Moreover, special attention has been paid to the passages of the interviews where the activists report on experiences both in terms of “I” and “we,” excluding, for this analysis, those parts where there was an exclusive use of the first person singular, such as in the descriptions of them giving birth. The first stage was the analysis of the dimensions related to localization, that is, those which refer to the cities harboring the collective groups, the place where activists meet and also the digital media used. The second stage involved the analysis of those elements that refer to the construction of “we” and have been elaborated during the collective action. Together with “we,” other elements

32  M. F. GONZÁLEZ

accounting for diverse kinds of otherness have been analyzed too. Lastly, “emotional work” and the ways of constructing affective ties mentioned by the activists were examined. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION Hybrid Places Endowed With Personal and Political Sense Both activist groups perform their actions in small cities in the province of Entre Ríos, where they started to build up new networks and to make new sense of gender activism, not exclusively limited to respected childbirth and obstetric violence. The action in small cities gives the activism certain characteristics, such as the participation in networks of dense relations, either because the participants share groups of friends, family, work, or because they already belong to different political organizations or cultural spaces. This enables relations but also constrains them. The existence of prior bonds can facilitate trust and commitment, but it may also act as a drawback. The activists perceive their actions and claims to be much more visible than they would be in bigger cities, which make them reflect upon the advantages and disadvantages of this visibility. As explained by F: It is about making issues [about gender violence] visible but always considering that we are in a place where it is not easy to introduce new things. We have talked about this many times: remember that we are in Colón ... where some issues have just started to be questioned. It was not until now that this is becoming more solid, more long-lasting. (Interview with F. Collective of the Square)

Another issue that appears in the interviews is the centrality of the meetings on the squares in both cities. It appears as a signal of identity in both groups, mainly in the one taking its name from the Square. In the case of the Multisectoral Woman’s Group the meetings in a public place are an integral part of a political strategy. Together with the location, it is stated that “something must be done,” as a call for action and for the creation of shared spaces for activism. In these paragraphs taken from the interview with R. these elements appear: We started to meet in February 2017. First the invitation was to come to the square, we invited through Facebook and other social media ... and I said “we must start doing something”; so what I noticed, together with another partner, was that there had been meetings for “Ni Una Menos” and that a lot of areas were part of it, but they were unorganized, broken up ... it was necessary to give them more sense, make it last … talk about gender

Constituting Childbirth Activism in Argentina   33 and gender violence. And it was from that moment when it emerged, the idea of saying “well, let’s invite people to come to the square and whoever wants to go can go”.... This was an experience of convergence, built by the experiences that each of us brought, be it about obstetric violence or not.... Being here (in the city of Gualeguay) and observing everything that was going on, [seeing] what can be done. And I tell you, everything went really fast. In fact, in the first meetings on the square we suggested meeting once a month to start working and we ended up meeting every Saturday.… The square was a space that was not associated with anything, a space where any woman ... whether she has been an activist before or she has never been in any group ... could feel that this is a space for everybody. Besides, it is very convenient because we take our kids to the square and the kids start knowing each other, making friends. (Interview with R. Multisectoral Women’s Group)

As can be seen, the public spaces, such as the square, turn into places inhabited by a political and collective will towards social transformation. There, women with different trajectories can feel welcome and it is also a space where their children can socialize. In the interviews, the role of the social media is central even though it is always subordinated to the “faceto-face” contact. Both groups have their own pages on Facebook where they publish their activities, make invitations, share publications made in other activist groups, either local or national, and so on. They also used WhatsApp messages but are committed to keep on using it as a means of communication and not as a space where decisions could be taken. These are always taken in assembly, in the shared space. Considering all this, we can assert that the localization aspect is central in the activism of these groups since the actions are deeply linked to the space where they take place. However, it is not a natural place, it is not simply a city or a square; these places are constituted from and depend on the relationships, bonds, and intentions of social transformation. They are spaces that transform with the use of social media, blending the activism through assemblies and a cyberactivism. All this gives the actions a specific character, without losing sight of the national and global networks and claims. Creation of “We” Through Participation The second category is related to the construction of identity related aspects—expressed by “we”—in permanent tension with diverse kinds of otherness. As we have seen in the first part of this chapter, the identity dimension is central for understanding feminist activisms. In this case, it involves the analysis of the construction of identity through the use of

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“we” but in permanent tension with kinds and of otherness and with the dynamics of participation resulting in this construction. There are different sociocultural psychological processes worth highlighting analytically: first, the processes of becoming aware taking place during the participation in the activist collectives. In the interviews, several expressions appeared which show a hybridization between “I” and “we” and between the personal and political sphere. This is the case in the interview with W., who says that taking part in a space inhabited by women telling about their traumatic experiences while giving birth made her feel that she was “neither alone nor crazy.” These experiences led her to wish that there were, in Gualeguay, an organization of women. And then I learnt that they had started to meet in the square and I approached them … is like all of us together.... It is evident that being together means more. To start transforming the pain in a fight in order to move forward and to be able to inform that women can choose (during labor). (Interview with W. Multisectoral Women’s Group)

There is a coming and going between processes of participation and identity creation, both in terms of “who I am” and “what we can do together.” The processes of becoming aware and increasing awareness, identity repositioning, and activist commitment intertwined personal meanings with new meanings created in the participation itself. Transformations appear connected to personal and social meanings which are tinged with new political senses. These movements resignify elements of other spaces and past activities, in terms of a present action which also looks to the future. As expressed by F.: We all knew each other previously, from other places, either cultural spaces or connected to other issues, but not as women thinking ourselves. And we said, well, let’s get together on a specific day and we did. The meetings are in the square, that is why the name (of the group). Well, if it doesn’t rain, we always meet in the square. (Interview with F. Collective of the Square)

The construction of identity also presupposes the otherness regarding to which relationships of resistance, opposition, confrontation, alliances, and so on, are established. All these dynamics are typical of social tensions and power dispute. Using the first-person plural, P. explains that: We understand that there are deeply rooted ideas which should be reverted, related to gender, gender violence, sexual and reproductive rights.… So, we believe that the change is not going to happen from one moment to the next. I do think that there are issues that are coming up. (Interview with P. Multisectoral Women’s Group)

Constituting Childbirth Activism in Argentina   35

In this case, otherness is represented by an ideological system which supports everyday violence suffered by women. In other cases, the otherness is represented by the judicial institutions, health organisms and local administration. As explained by R: We have been knocking on different doors … the Court, the Judge. We presented a letter to the hospital to request that a father can attend the birth by caesarean ... we have held meetings in the hospital with the director, with the chiefs of pediatrics and gynecology etcetera to claim the right of the mother to be accompanied (during childbirth).... We also presented a letter to the provincial Health Ministry with the help of the hospital director to request training for the hospital staff (about respected childbirth) ... the different organizations and institutions are providing answers, with the respect we have earned. (Interview with R. Multisectoral Women’s Group)

The identity aspects are constituted in the action itself, in the activist practice, with contributions from both personal experiences and shared actions. The alternation and fluency in the use of “I” and “we” and the use of phrases such as “we are women thinking ourselves” show these processes. It is difficult to maintain that there is a previous complete collective identity bringing forth the feminist movement. On the contrary, experiences of participation—in their dynamics and contexts—are creating the conditions for the construction and reconstruction of shared identities. The interrelations between the personal and the political, between action and reflection are part of those conditions of being. Emotional Work and New Forms of Relationship Emotions and affective ties are aspects of the activist experiences that appear very frequently and prominently in the interviews. While accounting for the forms and dynamics of action and organization, there are reflections about the own emotions and ways of connecting with fellow activists and other people in the family and work environment. Throughout the interviews, emotions appear linked to outrage, anger, pain, anguish, and happiness, excitement, gratitude. Some moral emotions appear when evaluating the activist actions: I am proud of what has been achieved: (society) has been sensitized and we have brought many issues to the public and political agenda of Gualeguay with the aim of improvement, of going to give birth and being respected. (Interview with V. Multisectoral Women’s Group)

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Common ways of connecting, of establishing relations of support and “sorority”, start to be part of the political action searching for social transformation. As stated by I.: We have to learn to relate in a different way, not only with women, with men too. I believe the social change happens that way, hand in hand with how I relate to others and how I learn to relate in a different way.... This does not mean that sorority never enters in crisis … it happens all the time, but at least I am aware of that. (Interview with I. Collective of the Square) Again, personal and political senses are interwoven in the narrative. In the case of F, for whom Feminism is not a theoretical issue, it is like wearing lenses and not taking them out. You can’t stop thinking in feminist terms, while you discover issues which are part of everyday life.... And from all these, (I took) the decision to become pregnant, for example ... to learn side by side with others and understand that is a life-long process ... and collaborate, for example, to avoid situations of violence against women in the workplace. (Interview with F. Collective of the Square)

Sometimes reflections about personal changes are related to their environment which is perceived as hostile towards the values of freedom, mutual help, and sorority. Thus, P. believes that “we are facing a fundamental period of change which clashes with the ideology of the right at a global level” (Interview with P. Multisectoral Women’s Group). Thus, the emotional work is framed within different individual, family and work relations that are transformed by the participation in activist groups. Meanwhile, emotions play an important role in the strengthening of this participation. As described by Della Porta and Diani (2015), affection and personal values are transformed during participation and become part of new meanings that, at the same time, reinforce the feeling of belonging to the social movement. CONCLUSIONS The study of respected childbirth activism offers the challenging opportunity to reflect upon the potential of cultural psychological concepts to hybridize with others belonging to the social sciences, studies about social movements, and feminism. This chapter started with the assertion that human action modifies and transforms the world while creating new possibilities for personal development. The transformative activist stance focuses on the concept of human action understood from the cultural historical activity theory (Stetsenko, 2008). The social sciences have shown how human action is socially organized, taking the shape of communities

Constituting Childbirth Activism in Argentina   37

and social movements. Although there is no unanimous agreement about considering social movements as communities, the critical revision of these concepts allowed us to identify certain analytical dimensions. In this vein, conceptual categories have been used in the empirical study and analysis based on these critical considerations has been carried out. This I will try to explain in more detail in the following. A question that has framed this chapter is how communities are built. In other words, how are shared ways of living created? In this case, these ways have been analyzed in activist movements fighting for sexual and reproductive rights. This chapter’s analytical approach has focused on describing some processes of the constitution of activisms in relation to location, the aspects of identity construction and emotional work, avoiding their consideration as substantive or essential dimensions. Thus, it was argued that space is created in relation to social dynamics and the tensions that appear between the ambition of social change and the preservation of the status quo. The transformative action carried out by the activists creates and resignifies spaces, such as the squares where they usually meet. The public place is an inhabited space that is appropriated by the group and given a new—in this case political—sense. That is, it makes the demand to stop any kind of violence against women visible. The action of the activists in the public space is, in itself, a political action. This process can be understood as the transformation of a space into a meaningful place (Kharlamov, 2012) linked, as we have mentioned, to the political, practical, and reflexive action of the organized activists. The processes of identity constitution take place within the participation in activist groups. Participation and identity are mutually related dynamic processes. The participation experiences (Rosa & González, 2013) lead to the mutual construction of the sense of self and of “us,” in interrelation between the personal and the social. The participation experiences together with the processes of becoming awareness taking place in conflicting situations, in contraposition to values and positions of power, construct new meaning, some of them linked to personal identity and collective identity. The sense of belonging, the construction of “us” or “we” can be reinforced by participation and activist commitment. The hybrid definition fluctuating between “I” and “we” is part of personal and collective trajectories. The use of “we” is at the same time politically constructed in the dispute about meanings with others, such as institutions and ideological systems, and part of identity positioning linked to moral commitments. Lastly, emotions have been analyzed as part of activist action committed to social change. In this sense, we can conclude that the emotional work, the activist commitment, and the positive assessment of the own and the collective actions are essential to explain the political actions of the activist groups. This is translated as the creation of new forms of relationship,

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based on reciprocity, solidarity, and moral emotions such as pride that, in turn reinforce the individual participation within activist practices. As a general conclusion, the processes of constituting social movements, as communities, effectively include the creation of personal and collective meaning of spaces, the identity construction that navigates between the personal and the political-collective, and an emotional culture which promotes relations based on reciprocity and solidarity, as a way of standing for social change. Considering the aims mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, it has tried to elucidate the constitution processes of childbirth activism building conceptual links between cultural psychology, the study of social movements and feminism. As can be seen, this attempt navigates between different conceptual waters and aims to reconcile ways of considering the agentic subject, social change, and the different shapes of joint human action. In this sense, it is not a complete or closed intellectual project but a challenge and search for conceptual synergies in which cultural psychology can collaborate with the critical study of communities and activist movements. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The author would like to thank the National University of Entre Rios for financially supporting the study discussed in this chapter (PID 10068/16). NOTE 1. Micaela García was a 21-year-old university student from Entre Ríos, Argentina. Entre Ríos’ society, which had not reacted to other similar crimes, was deeply touched by her femicide. Micaela’s murdered body was found after a one-week non-stop search, which involved the participation of her classmates, college friends and people from different social and political movements that Micaela used to be part of. Thousands of people went to her funeral. Later on, her parents set up the foundation called Micaela García “la Negra,” with the purpose to carry out many actions against gender violence. They encouraged the training in gender perspective to all the agents working in State institutions.

REFERENCES Bernstein, M. (2008). The analytic dimensions of identity: A political identity framework. In J. Reger, D. J. Meyers, & R. L. Einwohner (Eds.), identity work in social movements (pp. 277–301). University of Minnesota Press.

Constituting Childbirth Activism in Argentina   39 Bernstein, M., & Olsen, K. (2009). Identity deployment and social change: Understanding identity as a social movement and organizational strategy. Sociology Compass, 3(6) 871–883. Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. Carretero, M., López, C., González, M. F., & Rodríguez Moneo, M. (2012). Students’ historical narratives and concepts about the nation. In M. Carretero, M. Asensio, & M. Rodríguez Moneo (Eds.), History education and the construction of national identities (pp. 587–605). Information Age Publishing. Castells, M. (1997). Power of identity: The information age—Economy, society, and culture. Blackwell. Castrillo, B. (2016). Dime quién lo define y te diré si es violento. Reflexiones sobre la violencia obstétrica [Tell me who defines it and I’ll tell you if it’s violent: Reflections on the obstetric violence]. Sexualidad, Salud y Sociedad (Rio de Janeiro), 24, 43–68. Community. (n.d) In American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.). (2011). https://www.thefreedictionary.com/community Diani, M. (2004). Networks and participation. In D. Snow, S. Soule, & H. Kriesi (Eds.), The Blackwell companion to social movements (pp. 339–59). Blackwell. Della Porta, D., & Diani, M. (2015). The Oxford handbook of social movements. Oxford University Press. Darley, S. (2018). Learning as a process of personal-social transformation: Volunteering activity in health and social care charities. Mind, Culture and Activity, 25(3), 199–215. Gläser, J. (2004). Social movement as communities. The Australian Sociological Association (TASA) Conference. Beechworth, Australia, December 8–11, 2004. https://tasa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/GLASER.pdf González, M., & Carretero, M. (2013). Historical narrative and arguments in the contexts of identity conflicts. Estudios de Psicología, 34(1), 73–82. González, M. F. & Rosa, A. (2015). Hacer(se) ciudadanos. Una psicología para la democracia [Make (Be) citizens: A psychology for democracy]. Miño y Dávila. Gould, D. (2009). Moving politics: Emotion and act up’s fight against AIDS. The University of Chicago Press. Haste, H. (2004). Constructing the citizen. Political Psychology, 25(3), 413–439. Haste, H. (2009). What is ‘competence’ and how should education incorporate new technology’s tools to generate ‘competent civic agents’. The Curriculum Journal, 20(3), 207–223. Hercus, C. (1999). Identity, emotion, and feminist collective action. Gender & Society, 13(1), 34–55. Kharlamov, N. (2012). The city as a sign: A developmental- experiential approach to spatial life. In J. Valsiner (Ed.), The handbook of culture and psychology (pp. 277–302). Oxford University Press. Laval, C., & Dardot, P. (2015). Común. Ensayo sobre la revolución en el siglo XXI [Common: Essay on revolution in the 21st century]. Gedisa. Lorenzo, C. (2012). Es un parto. Indagaciones acerca de la construcción de un derecho. Trabajo de Investigación Final, Trabajo Social, FSOC, Universidad de Buenos Aires.

40  M. F. GONZÁLEZ Massey, D. (1994). Space, place and gender. University of Minnesota Press. Masson, L. (2007). Feministas en todas partes [Feminists everywhere]. Buenos Aires: Prometeo. Mayo, M. (2000). Cultures, communities, identities: Cultural Strategies for participation and empowerment. Palgrave. Mendes, K., Ringrose, J., & Keller, J. (2018). #MeToo and the promise and pitfalls of challenging rape culture through digital feminist activism. European Journal of Women’s Studies, 25(2), 236–246. Mendes, K., Ringrose, J., & Keller, J. (2019). Digital feminist activist: Girl and woman fight back against rape culture. Oxford University Press. Olson, C. C. (2016). #BringBackOurGirls: Digital communities supporting realworld change and influencing mainstream media agendas. Feminist Media Studies, 16(5), 772–787. Purdue, D., Diani, M., & Lindsay, I. (2004). Civic networks in Bristol and Glasgow. Community Development Journal, 39(3), 277–288. Quatrocchi, P. (2019). Obstetric violence observatory: Contributions of Argentina to the international debate. Medical Anthropology. https://doi.org/10.1080/01 459740.2019.1609471 Rosa, A. (2018). Spirited psyche creates artifacts: Semiotic dynamics of experience in the shaping of objects, agency, and intentional worlds. In A. Rosa & J. Valsiner (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of sociocultural psychology (pp. 103–129). Cambridge University Press. Rosa, A., & González, M. F. (2013). Trajectories of experience of real life events. A semiotic approach to the dynamics of positioning. Integrative and Psychological and Behavioral Science, 47(4), 395–430. Rosa, A., & González, M. F. (2018). Nurturing democratic citizenship: A commitment for psychology? In B. Wagoner, I. Brescó, & V. Glăveanu (Eds.), Road to actualized democracy: A psychological exploration (pp. 221–240). Information Age Publising. Reger, J. (2004). Organizational “emotion work” through consciousness-raising: An analysis of a feminist organization. Qualitative Sociology, 27(2) 205–222. Samaja, J. (2005). Epistemología y metodología. Elementos para una teoría de la investigación científica [Epistemology and methodology: Elements for a theory of scientific research]. EUDEBA. Sadler, M., Santos, M., Ruiz-Berdún, D., Leiva, G., Skoko, E., Gillen, P., & Clausen, J. (2016). Moving beyond disrespect and abuse: addressing the structural dimensions of obstetric violence. Reproductive Health Matters, 24(47), 47–55. Sawchuk, P., & Stetsenko, A. (2008). Sociological understanding of conduct for a noncanonical activity theory: Exploring intersection and complementarities. Mind, Culture and Activity, 15(4), 339–360. Stetsenko, A. (2008). From relational ontology to transformative activist stance on development and learning: Expanding Vygotsky (CHAT) project. Cultural Studies of Sciences Education, 3, 471–491. Stetsenko, A. (2018). Research and activist project of resistance: The ethical political foundations for a transformative ethico-onto-epistemology. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lcsi.2018.04.002

Constituting Childbirth Activism in Argentina   41 Taylor, V., & Whittier, N. (1992). Collective identity in social movement communities. In A. D. Morris & C. M. Mueller (Eds.), Frontiers in social movement theory (pp. 104–129). Yale University Press. Valsiner, J. (2009). Cultural psychology today: Innovations and oversights. Culture & Psychology, 15(5), 5–39. van Alphen, F., & Carretero, M. (2015). The construction of the relation between national past and present in the appropriation of historical master narratives. Integrative Psychological & Behavioral Science, 49, 512–530. Villarmea, S., Olza, I., & Recio, A. (2016). On obstetrical controversies: Refocalization as conceptual innovation. In Á. J. Perona (Ed.), Normativity and praxis: Remarks on controversies (pp. 157–188). Mímesis International. Villasante Prieto, T., Marti Olivé, J., & Montañes Serrano, M. (2012). La investigación social participativa. Construyendo ciudadanía 1 [Participatory social research: Building citizenship 1]. Editorial Viejo Topo. Wulff, S., Bernstein, M., & Taylor, V. (2015). New theoretical directions from the study of gender and sexuality movements: Collective identity, multi-institutional politics, and emotions. In D. Della Porta & M. Diani (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of social movements. Oxford University Press.

CHAPTER 3

THE PERFORMATIVE MOMENTUM OF THE HASHTAG An Examination of the #MeToo Movement Andreas A. Andersen and Nikolai S. K. Lybæk

INTRODUCTION At the end of 2017, public debate saw an explosion of allegations and testimonies of sexual assault with movie producer Harvey Weinstein unwillingly becoming the antagonistic front-runner. Since then, the focus on sexual violence, harassment and discrimination have brought down many powerful men in the worlds of media, sports, and politics, globally. A considerable drive behind steering public debate towards this focus has been the “Me Too” movement. The movement is often referred to with the hashtag #MeToo in both news and, perhaps more importantly, stories and statements by laypeople. As with #BlackLivesMatter and many other hashtags, these emblems, expressions or signs of a specific agenda or movement designate a rather strong connection to social media platforms where hashtags are generally used and stem from. Having such platforms

Cultural Psychology in Communities: Tensions and Transformations, pp. 43–63 Copyright © 2020 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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of communication as these so-called social media, whose global coverage is quite impossible to ignore, one might think it is perfectly natural that they will play a more or less central role in facilitating the social movements of our day. However, what are the psychological dynamics of the emergence of such social movements as represented by the #MeToo hashtag? Also, what role is played by the hashtag in connecting and affecting individuals all over the world in this emergence of communities of resistance to problematized norms and the rise of hopes for the transformation of existing communities and societies? We hypothesize that the hashtag as a sign has certain semeiotic and logical potentials that enable psychological dynamics, which are vital in transforming social norms and values.1 Therefore, we introduce a perspective on the hashtag that can provide initial answers for these questions and possibly transform our understanding of the dynamics of virtually mediated social movements. A Brief History of the #MeToo Movement The phrase ‘me too’ was initially used in the context of Tarana Burke’s uprising against sexual abuse of black women, which she fought through the non-profit organization Just Be Inc. After having heard the horrifying story of sexual abuse from a 13-year-old, Tarana was not capable of answering—not even “Me Too”; hence the phrase which she hereafter used as a moniker for her campaign against the forms of abuse she witnessed through her work (Garcia, 2017). The hashtag reappeared when Alyssa Milano posted the statement shown in Figure 3.1 and used the hashtag in a somewhat new context. Figure 3.1 shows the tweet that escalated the current form of the Me Too movement. In the current chapter, we will refer to this tweet as the Milano tweet. Within 24 hours this post reached 53.000 comments and, according to Twitter, the #MeToo hashtag was posted 1 million times within 48 hours (CBS, 2017). Therefore we will refer to the movement as the #MeToo movement, because Milano’s tweet and its core argument was and is largely used in the form of a hashtag after the initial post. We understand Milano’s tweet to represent the core argument of the movement as it echoes the general description of the #MeToo movement formulated on the official website (History and Vision, 2018). Here the aim of the movement is described as creating a global community of survivors of sexual violence to help destigmatize the act of surviving by highlighting the breadth and impact of sexual violence: Our goal is also to reframe and expand the global conversation around sexual violence to speak to the needs of a broader spectrum of survivors.... We want perpetrators to be held accountable and we want strategies

The Performative Momentum of the Hashtag   45

Figure 3.1.  Alyssa Milano’s tweet. implemented to sustain long term, systemic change.... As the “me too” movement affirms empowerment through empathy and community-based action, the work is survivor-led and specific to the needs of different communities. (History and Vision, 2018)

After this introduction to the #MeToo movement, our question would be: what are the formal definitions of a hashtag and how have other researchers investigated it so far? We will answer these two questions below, elaborating on the existing work on the topic and on how our analysis can reveal undisclosed aspects of the hashtag, with a primary focus on its property of mediating social movements. A Brief History of the Hashtag The Encyclopedia of Social Media and Politics describes a hashtag as: a symbol used to categorize, highlight, or tag topics and keywords contained in a single tweet on Twitter. A hashtag is signified by the use of the pound sign (#), called a hashtag on Twitter, followed by the word or words being tagged. (Lewis, 2014)

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Though originating from its use on Twitter, the hashtag is not restricted to this platform but is used similarly on other social media platforms. Furthermore, the encyclopedia states that anyone can create a hashtag, and they are not proprietary nor confined to specific usages: meaning that anyone can use a hashtag for their event, even if it has been used previously or is currently being used in another context.… The more a hashtag is used, and the more specific its defining parameters, the less likely it will be used by others. (Lewis, 2014)

As stated in the encyclopedia, hashtags are being used increasingly by celebrities, politicians as well as the general public to organize tweets around events and campaigns, also allowing to highlight of topics of general interest and directing dialogue towards these topics. Tagging posts with relevant hashtags is a new way to publicly voice concerns and thoughts through classifying posts with hashtags (Lewis, 2014). This evolution of the hashtag, becoming a tool for people to share their concerns in a way that transcends local and geographical boundaries, was also the main focus of the founders of this virtual function, then mainly referred to as the pound sign or hash symbol within computer science. They conceived it as a way to transcend the problems of having to be in online groups to search for and target specific content. So, inspired by how the pound sign was used to name IRC channels, it was proposed to Twitter to do the same on their platform. Over time the search function was integrated into the software so that users could see who else was using specific hashtags (Pandell, 2017). A Brief Review of the Research on Hashtags The effect of heightening awareness and enabling a broader reach of stories and public events is what seems to be the general interest in previous research on the use of hashtags. George et al. (2018) categorize the contexts in which the hashtags of three WHO health campaigns were used on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. We see the same focus on categorizing different uses of hashtags in the article from Bonilla and Rosa (2015), where they look at the emergence of different hashtags related to the protest following the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson in 2014. Likewise, Xiong et al. (2018) focus on the discursive forms and effects that are found in semantic network analysis and thematic analysis of Twitter during the #MeToo movement. Here we see the conceptualization of the hashtag as an instrument for social movement organizations (SMOs). This is also a perspective found in Giglietto and Lees (2017) investigation on how hashtags were used by the public following the Charlie Hebdo terrorist

The Performative Momentum of the Hashtag   47

attack to engage in discursive strategies that opposed the popular opinion. These investigations share a discursive focus and a mostly quantitative thematic mode of analyzing various hashtags, how they were used over time and by who. The investigation closest to our approach is by Cappellini et al. (2018), who explore how hashtags, exemplified by #ShoutYourAbortion, afford or prevent public dialogue and social exchange in public through the “us” and the “others” positions. They also invoke a coding of different themes expressed by the use of the hashtag, but through the theoretical lens of borderscapes. Their focus is on the differentiation of people as belonging or as others, thus partly describing that the hashtag as: a (social) ordering tool ... is ambivalent: both a representation of boundaries as well as individual and collective practice of construction, deconstruction and reconstruction of boundaries of belonging and the others. (p. 8)

A Community Perspective on Hashtags In contrast to most of the existing research that has focused on when, by who and how many hashtags have been used, we set out to explore the question of how and why individuals use this sign. In our work, we analyze how transformation and resistance occur when social norms are facing opposition from new forms of communities as represented by the #MeToo hashtag. This leads to the question of how we understand communities. Inspired by Benedict Anderson, we arrive at an understanding of the dynamic between individuals, mediating communication through a hashtag, as a form of representing an imagined community. Imagined because it rests, not on a physical sense of face-to-face related community, but on the reciprocal belief of belonging (Anderson, 2006). In his work on nationalism, Anderson (2006) explicated that the issue is not whether one can speak of a more or less real community, as when investigating the community emerging around a hashtag, but rather how it comes to be and the way it develops: “all communities larger than primordial villages of face-to-face contact (and perhaps even these) are imagined. Communities are to be distinguished, not by their falsity/genuineness, but by the style in which they are imagined” (p. 6). Resting on the above, communities are not to be viewed as imaginary and, hence, unreal. They become genuine in the process of imagining. We see the way a movement like #MeToo emerges as an expression of this kind of imagination and we aim to distinguish the style in which this community is imagined and, furthermore, what the societal consequences of this style of imagining might be.

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SEMEIOTICS OF THE HASHTAG In this section, we set out to give an initial foundation of how the #MeToo hashtag can serve as an example of a sign with specific semeiotic qualities enabling individual interactions within a psychological sphere. But why drag in semeiotics? We feel a strong need to establish an understanding of the hashtag as a sign, as a function—not as an octothorpe, not as a number sign, but as a hashtag. This is necessary to allow an examination of the hashtag that exceeds some presupposed and shared understanding of what this object is, and what it can do to us socially. We have used the theory of Charles Sanders Peirce, who, as one of his main achievements, created an extensive system for categorizing signs. In this system, he introduced a new focus on the role of interpretation in the understanding of signs.2 We have taken a closer look at the more commonly used and most significant parts of this structure in relation to our topic (Atkins, 2010; Valsiner, 2014). Our focus rests on three overall relations of the representamen signifying the object, thus dictating three distinct types of interpretation of the sign: Index, icon and symbol.3 These are the categories we will be using and our focus will primarily be on the indexical form that the hashtag can take. In relation to the #MeToo hashtag, we think that the hashtag can show itself in all three forms. Or rather, we think that the hashtag is the kind of sign that can transform its whole symbolic context, for example a twitter post, into different semeiotic modes when connected to a given statement. Often the forms of the sign categories will not be sharply divided, something that Peirce himself also noted.4 In a similar vein, Valsiner (2014) points out how for instance a painting by Fransisco de Goya can be seen as representing both iconic, symbolic, and indexical features, in that there will be some object depicted, some relation to the painter and his context of production, and some symbolic value to be interpreted from a conventional cultural scheme. So there might be more semeiotic layers to various objects—even a hashtag. The index is a type of sign whose representamen signifies and points to its objects physically or causally, like that of smoke from a fire or a bullet hole from the shot. The icon is a type of sign whose representamen signifies its object in the way of likeness as that of the portrait or another way of depiction. The symbol then is a type of sign whose representamen only signifies its object through social convention, like that of the word which upon reading calls forth a meaning of some kind which is established through convention (Atkins, 2010; Merrell, 2001; Tateo, 2018). One might say that the hashtag is a symbolic type of sign, since one may only find meaning in this perception of an octothorpe in conjunction with letters,

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qua the social conventions of language and culture. We argue, as Valsiner does with Goya’s painting, that it may carry the potential of additional semeiotic characteristics. First, we want to distinguish different ways the hashtag can be used, by itself or in a further symbolic context. In the case of the #MeToo hashtag, it can be posted on its own without further text or statement. In this case, we argue that it functions as an indexical sign, because it would be signifying the movement as the sender becomes an extension thereof. This we think is a consequence of the core argument of the Milano tweet and posting the hashtag without further contextualization would be a form of taking part in and prolonging this argument. When the hashtag is used in connection with a further symbolic context, we argue that the #MeToo hashtag will be just one symbolic part of a new sign which is constituted by both the hashtag and additional text. In cases where the hashtag enters into a new sign that stands out by iconic qualities, it will be used by some outside description to depict the movement that the hashtag has come to represent. It might seem faulty to take a primarily symbolic sign as enabling a depiction, however, a depiction is arguably what happens when you describe particular objects in more or less picturesque, positive or negative, ways. Examples of this might be a public rant or praise of the movement by someone who does not herself claim the truth of the core argument and thereby will only “speak of ” the movement and not “speak from within” the movement. When the hashtag enters into a new sign that stands out also and mainly as an index, this new sign, a complete statement, will be signifying the movement itself. This means that someone who claims the truth of the core argument by giving some supporting statements in connection with the hashtag comes to “speak from within” the movement. We will argue that this, by analogy to the causal connection between smoke from the fire, should be seen as a causal extension of the movement. Furthermore, the #MeToo hashtag can be seen as gaining indexical quality in a double manner through not only causally representing the movement itself but at the same time representing the sender’s expression of a personal experience. This could take the form of a post on Facebook where someone would share their personal experiences related to sexual violence linked with the #MeToo hashtag, or the posting of the #MeToo hashtag on its own. We have tried to shed light upon the question of “what” the hashtag can be seen to be, regarding its inherent qualities as a sign. The next step will be to attempt a description of “how” the hashtag then, using the qualities above, can come to determine public meaning-making when unfolded in discourse.

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The Connection Between Indexicality and Performativity After having argued for the semeiotic conceptualization of the #MeToo hashtag, the way is paved for us to identify another dimension of the potentiality of the sign that the hashtag may invoke. We find the indexical use of the hashtag especially impressive here. This is due to the way it enables a kind of statements that according to Jean Francois Lyotard (1996) have performative quality, within his pragmatic theory of language games and their role in the legitimation of knowledge in a postmodern society. In that sense, we will use elements of Lyotard’s theory of postmodernity to determine how specific semeiotic uses of the hashtag affect its truth value in the establishment of social movements. According to Lyotard (1996), one of the things that characterize postmodern society is the fall of the grand narratives that earlier served as the common ground for evaluating the truth of statements. These grand narratives that previously worked as the overall frameworks in the light of which people understood the purpose of their surroundings broke down and have been replaced by clusters of incommensurable language games within which local determinism rules (diPiramo, 2013; Lyotard, 1996). Lyotard points out that every language game has its rules which structure the interaction and “turn-taking” between the participants. So how do people navigate between these language games? After all, we do not seem to live in complete anarchy when it comes to negotiations and evaluations of what we take to be accurate descriptions of the world—even though we find ourselves within different language games that set the rules for discourse of cultural or scientific understandings. Lyotard envisions a directing metalanguage that mediates the interplay between language games as setting performance as the scale against which we measure different claims to legitimize knowledge. Performativity is understood as a matter of the best input to output ratio. We see this way of claiming knowledge in relation to the question of input and output as referring to a quantitative way of thinking about evidence. Performative statements are one of three main types of statements that, according to Lyotard (1996), make up our world of discourse. The other two are denotative and prescriptive statements respectively. In case of a denotative statement, a sender claims knowledge about a referent demanding correct identification and the receiver can grant or withhold acceptance of such claims. In the present context, this could be exemplified by a statement about a personal experience of sexual harassment. In this case, the receiver could question the correctness of the statement about the experience that is the referent. In case of a prescriptive statement, the sender has enough authority to demand and expect the implementation of the statements content no matter the state of affairs. The Milano tweet might be seen as

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partly prescriptive, because she has a specific authority in her capacity of being a famous actress, with hence an above-average position of trustworthiness, outreach and influence to a big part of Western society. This was undoubtedly a factor in the sudden escalation of the #MeToo movement. However, performative statements are most compelling in case the wording of the statement itself grants the sender authority, partly depending on the effect of the statement. As the statement is accepted, the role of the receiver is transformed. The example Lyotard uses is that of a dean declaring the opening of the academic year. This statement rests on the dean’s position communicating it, or the other way around. That is, because the university is opened by the statement the dean manifests his position. The reaction to the statement is itself what grants it the power to designate the state of affairs as a result of this, also rendering the recipients role as newly constituted—with regards to the example as being students of the next semester for instance. What we now argue is that with a purely linguistic sign that enables indexical use, this kind of use at the same time opens up the possibility of the statement gaining performative properties. When the #MeToo hashtag stands as or appears in an indexical type of sign and the receiver perceives a causal extension of the movement, we argue that the sign, realizes the content of the statement by its utterance. This is due to the indexical qualities of the hashtag transforming the rest of its symbolic context as they connect in a new sign. The indexical quality then includes it in the language game structuring the #MeToo movement. This means that as the receiver of this sign—even if critical towards the truth of its object, the movement and its core argument—cannot negate the truth of the statement within the language game of the movement which indexically has shown itself in a causal extension. Figure 3.2 shows an anonymous screenshot from a Facebook post in which the hashtag appears in what we argue to be an indexical sign. In analogy to the example of the university, one might doubt the correctness of the referred experiences described. However, in using the #MeToo hashtag the sign is included in a language game within which this statement gains performative properties, in that it becomes support for the truth of the core argument of the hashtag— whether a receiver approves or not. Just imagine the same statement, but without containing the hashtag. The statement would contain the same narrative of a given experience, but it would not be embedded in a language game that sets a whole context for the statement as an indexical sign gaining performative properties and thus participating in the movement’s process of resistance. Since the language game of the hashtag makes an increasing performative character of the utterances possible of which the hashtag is part, we see this as a potential for legitimating knowledge between communities.

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Figure 3.2.  Screenshot from Facebook.

The Logical Structure of the Hashtag We have now established the potential of the hashtag as a semeiotic sign and how it can enter into a new sign of further symbolic context. As written above, such a sign may take on performative properties by the inclusion in the language game of the movement. We argue that the sign thus manifested forces the receiver to position herself inside or outside the logical grouping of the movement. This logical grouping, we argue, comes into being when a multiplicity of people share and try to distinguish the same indexical connection to the object of the sign, which is the #MeToo movement and its core argument. In the case of the #MeToo hashtag, when it appears in or acts as an indexical sign “performing its object,” it roughly forces the receiver to either (a) disapprove of the statement which places the receiver in some kind of opposition outside of the movement or (b) approve of the statement which enables a passive inclusion in the movement or (c) approve of the statement and contribute by offering a new indexical statement including the hashtag and thereby actively joining the movement as a self-endowed index of this. What logically happens with this approval or disapproval of the statement is that one agrees or disagrees with a way to distinguish the concept; namely the concept of sexual violence as a widespread structural problem in the world. When personal experiences of sexual violence accumulate they might gain larger impact through a growing mutual validation, transcending the level of personal experience. This is what the Milano tweet initially addressed, and therefore what we take to be the core argument that each indexical use of the hashtag is acting as support for. As the indexical sign by every use distinguishes the concept of this societal

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problem, it will do so in contrast to all agents outside the movement that might behave in ways that are problematized. The indexical use of the hashtag will then always demarcate the senders as part of a group as opposed to the undefined surroundings of others outside the group, who are—if hypothetically disapproving of the statement and core argument— part of the problem addressed. Because the #MeToo hashtag enables so many stories that all support the narrative of the problem, but does not provide set criteria for inclusion, we see the movement as structured as a group in opposition to a largely “open set,” This means that potentially, for every story included in the “A-group” (a #MeToo approving group of the language game), the so-far unlimited opposition might include yet another sort of behavior or attitude of outside groups (all contained in the outside “non-A-group”). Since the #MeToo movement is then primarily structured as growing from including stories of what to oppose, we see the logical structure of the hashtag as the open set of the non-non-A, rather than a closed set of A (Tateo, 2016, 2018). The logical structure immanent in the core argument will entail the inclusion or exclusion of individuals in the language game structured around the core argument. In this perspective of the hashtag as invoking a sign representing a language game, we will argue that different hashtags will be having more or less of an advantage in legitimating knowledge in a postmodern society. This we see as depending mainly on how all the previously discussed properties of semeiotic, performative, and logical structures offer a use of the hashtag in an actual cultural and social psychological context of grouping and affective influence—that is, what the actualized output will be of the hashtag when it is used to distinguish experiences, opinions, and communities. PSYCHOLOGICAL POTENTIALITY OF THE HASHTAG In the following section, we will place our understanding of the #MeToo hashtag in the context of group affiliation and explore the conditions for why people are led to engage with the hashtag. We go about this by expanding our logical conceptualization of the #MeToo hashtag from a social psychological point of view, enabling an understanding of the behavior supporting the #MeToo community and meaning-making embedded in the sharing of statements online. To define the #MeToo hashtag’s influence on behavior, we draw on Hogg and Abrams’s (2006) group theory and in-group and out-group distinction, as this aspect of human life plays a crucial role in conceptualizing the individual’s participation in groups and communities such as gender, age, political views, humor, and the list goes on. However, this approach

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is merely meant as an entrance into the field of the interrelated dynamics between individuals when communication on a relevant topic is mediated through the #MeToo hashtag. In continuation of our logical conceptualization of the hashtag we see that as soon as one perceives the movement, by using the hashtag, or by engaging in discussion about the topic, one is already positioning oneself in relation to the movement. How individuals, from this position, continually relate themselves to the movement is then determined by the categorization that serves as a framework for ultimately understanding oneself. The categorization is—much like the simplifying quality of groups—an integral part of how one builds a steady framework for understanding one’s reality. Categorization covers the cognitive process where phenomena are fragmented and gathered anew in a way that eases the processing and understanding of the phenomena (Hogg & Abrams, 2006). Perceptions are categorized and understood following previous experiences from which similarities and differences from these experiences determine and clarify the object in question. For any and every individual that comes into contact with the #MeToo hashtag, it encourages and represents a categorization that reciprocally strengthens and depends on affective influence. As a result of this, we do not see the exposure of the hashtag as creating well-formed groups. We would rather see that the hashtag, no matter what, is a sign that visibilizes a distinction between people in general, as a consequence of the wide variety of people’s lived experiences. This distinction can then be the foundation of a bottom-up emergence of groups. If the individual gains self-understanding through the categorization relative to the positioning invoked by the distinction visibilized by the hashtag, one is likely to strengthen this affiliation to the group emerging as part of this process, depending on the lived experience. It becomes relevant for the recipient to share one’s own similar experiences or thoughts to show support and encouragement (Hogg & Abrams, 2006). However, how can we develop our understanding of why such categorization would add to an individual’s self-understanding and thereby encouraging the strengthening of the group affiliation? Conditions for Affiliation and Transformation We will now move on to elaborating the idea of how individuals can come to feel connected with the #MeToo hashtag and the community around it. Here we return to our interpretation of the semeiotic and logical elements of the hashtag as a point of reference for continued analysis. In case individuals are presented with an indexical expression of the #MeToo language game and start to relate to this community represented

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by the hashtag, it will also be a matter of affect to what degree the message of the core argument will resonate with them. Further, it will be a matter of affect how this resonance will enable a change of discourse through the externalized messages of this individual. So how may we establish the conditions under which this affective influence could occur? According to Gerda Roelvink (2010) and her reading of William Connolly, three steps can be distinguished in the process of changing discourse through testimonies, which might be affectively relatable: The first step involves the creation of a “new word or phrase” and its introduction into public…. This new word or phrase has an effect on the public discourse which it enters … second, this new word or phrase offers others a way to capture and express similar feelings or sensibilities. Third, if the word or phrase comes to express a common experience it can be translated into discursive representation. As the new word or phrase becomes “an object of thought” it might be used to think about and act on the world. (p. 4)

Now we take the hashtag as exemplifying just such a “new word or phrase” that—particularly with the Milano tweet—has been made public. How can we determine to what degree it would offer an affective relation of “similar feelings or sensibilities” through indexically signifying a language game structured around the core argument contained in the #MeToo hashtag? In the following, we first analyze how the individual comes to process a given input through Valsiner’s thoughts on internalization and externalization. Second, we take some further affective qualities of the #MeToo movement into consideration by exploring Stolte and Fender’s (2007) view on qualifying conditions for a statement being affectively relatable and having a transformative quality. Speaking of internalization and externalization, a central idea that plays a crucial role in the entire premise of the #MeToo movement is that we have human bodies, arenas for the double process of internalizing and externalizing messages and meanings from and to our surroundings. Using the hashtag indexically, one expresses real experience of sexual violence. Both internalization and externalization are parts of a dual process, as they are a means for one individual to register incoming messages, interpret them, and perhaps later express them for other individuals to potentially register, interpret and express (Valsiner, 2014). So, the cycle of interpreting the hashtag potentially repeats itself; an idea analogous to Peirce’s conception of the potential infinite semiosis of signs developing from each other’s interpretants (Atkins, 2010). Persons actively decompose messages—communicated to them by signs— and re-compose them into new intra-psychic patterns which are then constructively brought to the sphere of accessibility by others. Through such a

56  A. A. ANDERSEN and N. S. K. LYBÆK two-fold process—analysis and synthesis—human beings remain related to one another while creating one’s subjective uniqueness. (Valsiner, 2014, p. 63)

Further, Valsiner (2014) points to the connection between our creation of signs and the way we use these to create a sense of self-understanding and meaning in our surroundings: The developing person moves towards constantly open horizons both in the interior of one’s Psyche and in the exterior of one’s exploration of the external world and creating its meaningfulness through signs. Persons create signs and, through these signs, themselves, in their human uniqueness. The person is social because s/he is constantly transcending the immediate social context through semiotic mediation: “I am X but today I want to act as Y” leads to new personal experiencing that in its turn leads to the person actually becoming Y. (p. 64)

In Valsiner words, it appears to be quite clear that there is indeed a connection between the way that individuals identify themselves with signs presented to them. Furthermore, they relate and reproduce signs for other individuals to relate to. However, the reason, or rather, the motivation to reproduce the sign is left somewhat unaddressed. What makes people care about internalizing and further expressing statements related to the #MeToo hashtag? To answer this question more fully, we turn to the work of John F. Stolte and Shanon Fender (2007). Unfolding their view, we can identify two especially relevant conditions to our examination of the affective potential of the #MeToo movement. First, it is a necessity that the available information is culturally meaningful for the recipient in advance in order to function as a basis for a possible transformation. Thereby it is required to have some understanding of how the #MeToo hashtag covers the opposition to a particular behavior, the collective term, the political movement, and so on, in order to even begin to have an affective impact on the recipient (Stolte & Fender, 2007). Second, culturally meaningful cues must be available to define and delineate the intended transformation. This is crucial as a change in attitude towards a specific phrase or statement must be somewhat clear for individuals to understand and to follow the intended transformation (Stolte & Fender, 2007). The core argument of the #MeToo movement and its community is easily understandable in the Western world in which it arose, but also beyond, as it has some explicit reference to a culturally meaningful discussion on equal rights. Thereby, it becomes easy for the individual to accept the format of discussing equality in a new context. Additionally, the movement is limited by meaningful cues of who can deliver a valid testimony. As the #MeToo discussion is based on women

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sharing experiences of assault, derogation and injustice, it might become less meaningful for men to partake in the #MeToo narrative in any way other than by language game externally commenting on or describing the discussion. Furthermore, the potential for invoking affective influence on the individual can be strengthened, when the #MeToo narrative meets the criteria of being presented with an intrinsic social value frame, meaning that the ethical value of an act is given in itself and by itself. This hypothesis was formulated and tested by Stolte and Fender (2007) when they sought out to investigate how an affective bond could be reinforced. They found that “ ‘A’ will emotionally identify more strongly with (feel closer to) a ‘B’ whose actions fit an intrinsic social value frame than a ‘B’ whose actions fit an extrinsic social value frame” (p. 65). Another factor is the way of how the narrative is presented. It is exceedingly essential that the recipient must understand not only the presented information but also the limits for the movement’s aim at a transformation for any change to occur (Stolte & Fender, 2007). Having established these factors as ground criteria for affective relatability to occur, it will differ from case to case how a given statement is formulated and shared. On social media platforms, there are multiple instruments to make statements more impactful such as posting a photo that relates to the narrative or even sharing a video on the given topic. The concreteness and vividness are both important factors that relate to this, as an abstract #MeToo statement of low vividness would have minimal impact, even if related seamlessly to already meaningful cultural references and cues. Thus, a statement of concrete-high-vividness can invoke a much more powerful reaction in the recipient, as it will be much easier to relate emotionally (Stolte & Fender, 2007). Unlike the two qualifying conditions, the hypotheses are not conditional for a transformation of social value frames. However, they carry the potential for strengthening the #MeToo movement’s power to have an affective impact on the recipient of some manifestation of the core argument of the hashtag. Thereby the #MeToo movement will be able to transform individuals’ social value frames insofar as the narrative resonates affectively with the recipient. Furthermore, this entails the movement being somewhat malleable as individuals are capable of feeling a strong association and affiliation to the movement with no need for a fully consensual interpersonal perception of the movement itself. As one individual feels a strong claim to a particular experience and narrative, it is not necessary for others to feel an affective bond to the same elements, but moreover, it is sufficient for the other individual to feel emotionally attached to the movement itself. We further argue that a hashtag can be seen as the phrasing of a generative theme, revealing aspects of the world and hence also implicit normative wishes for an alternative state of affairs. This, we argue

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with support from Roelvink (2010), could enable a change of discourse and the legitimation of knowledge in postmodern communities. As Roelvink (2010) points out, referring to Paulo Freire, social movements will need to phrase generative themes of everyday experiences that should be relatable on a broader social scale. This phrasing is what we see enabled by the #metoo hashtag, based on the theory of Stolte and Fender. For Freire (1996: 68) to name something is to problematise it and thus to begin to change the world. Naming the “ ‘ought’ relates to Connolly’s (2002: 73) first step of the creative force of affect, ‘revealing an absence’— an alternative to the ‘is’—retrospectively where none had been experienced by most before.” (p. 114)

What this quote shows is that an indexical statement containing a hashtag might, in meeting the criteria formulated by Stolte and Fender (2007), be successful in describing the current state of affairs and at the same time also the lacks and deficiencies of the current state of affairs. In this sense, the ability of a hashtag to express societal deficiencies will also be an indicator of whether a hashtag contains the possibility of offering a discursive alternative to the “is.” In the case of #MeToo, the phrasing of a generative theme by the hashtag will, no matter what, create a social distinction and a foundation for the strengthening of a new imagined community, but the effectiveness of this process will depend on the affective potential of the signs created by individuals relating to this community. ESTABLISHING A PERFORMATIVE MOMENTUM So what have we shown with this assessment of the potentials of the #MeToo hashtag in a semeiotic context and a social psychological sphere? We have shown that when a #MeToo hashtag is utilized, alone or with some statement, it will be representing a language game structured around the core argument of the Milano tweet. This representation will then be manifesting the hashtag or the statement it appears in as a sign, which by its indexical use can function as a performative statement. We then established that people will generally position themselves according to some distinction made by a performative statement such as the indexical uses of the #MeToo hashtag and possibly affiliate themselves with different groupings and communities through categorizing themselves and others with these statements representing communities centered around language games. A language game that, by its logical structure, has the potential of expanding for every statement made within it, thus including further distinctions of the #MeToo movement. This could be

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investigated further through an affective meaning-making perspective as that of Tateo (2018). If a statement, such as that of the indexical use of the #MeToo sign, will be living up to the criteria of affective relatability, and provide a degree of concrete-high-vividness, this sign-statement and the language game it represents will be providing a description of the “is” of the world and its deficiencies—the societal problem of sexism in case of the #MeToo hashtag—hence also enabling the phrasing of an “ought” serving as a guide for future discursive transformation of communities. In this sense the potential performativity of the indexical statement that we established in the first section, we have now shown to be able to gain momentum through its meeting of criteria for affective relatability, thereby enabling the legitimation of knowledge of a societal problem in given communities and whole societies. By this legitimation of a description of the deficiencies of the social world, the way is also paved for thinking of alternative ways to shape and change the norms of communities. The Importance of Analyzing the Hashtag After presenting our conceptualization of the #MeToo hashtag, we will now argue why we see the importance of this kind of conceptualization and what consequences it can have. However, what insight can this conclusion give us to assessing the nature of these virtually mediated social movements and their ability to express the resistance of given communities and to transform societal hegemonies? We have developed a model to visualize our perspective on the workings of the hashtag movement. Figure 3.3 illustrates the represented language game, among other language games in the discursive universe of a given society. To illustrate the movement meeting the two overarching conditions for the transformation of social value frames and knowledge legitimation the expanding shape of the spiral shows the evolving performative momentum created by the gradually increasing inclusion of externalized statements as the conditions are met. The interplay between the individual and the group is, in this case, mediated through the use of the hashtag. The effectiveness of the mediation depends on the affective potential of the core argument’s phrasing of a generative theme and the way that the phrasing invites testimonies acting as support for the argument. This affective potential of relatability—illustrated by the centered arrows—represents the degree to which people feel that they can relate to the indexical statement. This is the drive behind the performative momentum illustrated by the expanding spiral. In that sense, the model is a simplified overview of the processes behind the legitimation of knowledge and the transformation of social value frames.

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Figure 3.3.  The performative momentum.

What we see is that the legitimation of knowledge depends, first, on the core argument’s structure that is represented by the hashtag when used indexically, as this sets the limits of its ability to instantiate performativity. Second, the legitimation depends on the ways that this representation enables an affective relatability between individuals interacting through the hashtag. We can distinguish these two overarching conditions for the legitimation of knowledge within the realm of hashtag mediated communication. Since these conditions are not necessarily dependent on the factuality of the phenomena which the core argument distinguishes, we can also establish that the success of a hashtag movement is not necessarily a proportional expression of the magnitude of a problem. Our thesis of hashtag movements depending on other factors than the number of people sharing an experience may seem uncontroversial to some. Of course, there are questions of timing and the position of the initial problematization that will affect the range of the hashtag. However, on the other hand, it is a somewhat controversial conclusion when the knowledge that is being legitimized has such widespread social consequences. Consequences that derive from the performative momentum that may be identified in that a language game grows to affect people outside of it. With this, we mean that it is no matter of course that the truth of a language game will be forcing outsiders to conform to its values; this is namely a matter of momentum. It is vital not only to consider when

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hashtags reach performative momentum but also the cases where a given hashtag does not. The truth of the statement is not necessarily embedded in the formulation of a statement but is assigned by the recipient. Whether or not a statement is accepted as real is, therefore, a question of relatability to the core argument and how it is presented through the current state of the language game, as it has come to be shaped by its users. For example, one might imagine previous or other attempts at problematizing the magnitude of sexual violence through other hashtags. However, if a movement and its core argument are lacking in relatability for reasons described and contained in the two conditions, the momentum might not actualize itself and social value frames might not change the hegemonic structures regardless of their factual existence. Therefore it is not only essential to understand the virtual communication associated with the #MeToo narrative but also the general affective reach of the movement in order to understand the transformative potential of the movement as going beyond its virtual manifestation. In that sense, this understanding of the hashtag as a semeiotic and psychological sign can shed light on crucial issues in how communities of the present day are organized and struggle for transforming social norms on the social media platforms that have become an increasing part of everyday communication and mediation of sociallity. NOTES 1. “What Peirce meant by ‘semeiotic’ is almost totally different from what has come to be called ‘semiotics,’ and which hails not so much from Peirce as from Ferdinand de Saussure and Charles W. Morris. Even though Peircean semeiotic and semiotics are often confused, it is important not to do so. Peircean semeiotic derives ultimately from the theory of signs of Duns Scotus and its later development by John of St. Thomas (John Poinsot)” (Burch, 2018). 2. Peirce’s theory of signs is structured mainly in triads on multiple levels. In his early account, he operates with three overall elements that together make up the sign that we grasp when understanding something as a sign: Representamen (the signifier), object and interpretant (Atkins, 2010, para. 1.1). It is worth noting that in Peirce’s view a sign could consist in a variety of things tangible to the senses, such as “pictures, symptoms, words, sentences, books, libraries, signals, orders of command, microscopes, legislative representatives” (Liszka, 1996, p. 20) 3. “What usually goes for a sign in everyday talk Peirce called a representamen. He did so in order to distinguish the representamen from the other two sign components.... The representamen may be a cloud of smoke that suddenly appears over a cluster of silver-tipped spruce in the Rocky Mountain

62  A. A. ANDERSEN and N. S. K. LYBÆK National Park in Colorado. A Ranger spies the sign. Immediately a semiotic object, fire, comes to mind” (Merrell, 2001, pp. 28, 30). 4. “it is worth noting that by 1903, the simple icon/index/symbol trichotomy was something of an abstraction, and Peirce was aware that any single sign may display some combination of iconic, indexical and symbolic characteristics” (Atkins, 2010, para. 3.2).

REFERENCES Anderson, B. (2006). Imagined vommunities. Verso. Atkins, A. (2010). Peirce’s theory of signs. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved April 11, 2018 from, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/peircesemiotics/ Bonilla, Y., & Rosa, J. (2015). #Ferguson: Digital protest, hashtag ethnography, and the racial politics of social media in the United States. American Ethnologist, 42(1), 4–17. Burch, R. (2018). Charles Sanders Peirce. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved June 30, 2019, from https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2018/ entries/peirce/> Cappellini, B., Kravets, O., & Reppel, A. (2018). Shouting on social media? A borderscapes perspective on a contentious hashtag. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 145, 428–437. CBS. (2017, October 17). More than 12M “Me Too” Facebook posts, comments, reactions in 24 hours. CBS News. Retrieved May 10, 2018, from https:// www.cbsnews.com/news/metoo-more-than-12-million-facebook-postscomments-re actions-24-hours/ diPiramo, D. (2013). Lyotard, Jean François. In Theory in Social and Cultural Anthropology: An Encyclopedia. Retrieved May 10, 2018, from http://sk.sagepub.com. zorac.aub.aau.dk/reference/theory-in-social-and-cultural-anthropology/n173. xml?term=lyotard Garcia, S. E. (2017, October 20). The woman who created #metoo long before hashtags. The New York Times. Retrieved May 10, 2018, from https://www. nytimes.com/2017/10/20/us/me-too-movement-tarana-burke.html George, D. N., Britto, R., Krishnan, V., Dass, L. M., Prasant, H. A., & Aravindhan, V. (2018). Assessment of hashtag (#) campaigns aimed at health awareness in social media. Journal of Education and Health Promotion, 7(1), 114. Giglietto, F., & Lee, Y. (2017). A hashtag worth a thousand words: Discursive strategies around #JeNeSuisPasCharlie after the 2015 Charlie Hebdo Shooting. Social Media + Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305116686992 History and Vision. (2018). Retrieved June 28, 2019 from, https://metoomvmt.org/ about/#history Hogg, M. A., & Abrams, D. (2006). Social identifications: A social psychology of intergroup relations and group processes. Taylor & Francis e-Library. Lewis, J. L. (2014). Hashtag. Encyclopedia of Social Media and Politics. SAGE. Liszka, J. J. (1996). A general introduction to the semeiotic of Charles Sanders Peirce. Indiana University Press.

The Performative Momentum of the Hashtag   63 Lyotard, J. (1996). Viden og det postmoderne samfund [Knowledge and the postmodern society]. Slagmark. Merrell, F. (2001). Charles Sanders Peirce’s concept of the sign. In P. Cobley (Ed.), The Routledge companion to semiotics and linguistics. Routledge. Pandell, A. (2017). The hashtag. Wired. San Francisco, 25(6), 25. Roelvink, G. (2010). Collective action and the politics of affect. Emotion, Space and Society, 3, 111–118. Stolte, J. F., & Fender, S. (2007). Framing social values: An experimental study of culture and cognition. Social Psychology Quarterly, 70(1), 59–69. Tateo, L. (2016). Toward a cogenetic cultural psychology. Culture & Psychology, 22(3), 433–447. Tateo, L. (2018). Affective semiosis and affective logic. New Ideas in Psychology, 48, 1–11. Valsiner, J. (2014). An invitation to cultural psychology. SAGE. Xiong, Y., Cho, M., & Boatwright, B. (2018). Hashtag activism and message frames among social movement organizations: Semantic network analysis and thematic analysis of Twitter during the #MeToo movement. Public Relations Review, 45, 10–23.

CHAPTER 4

MEANING MAKING PROCESSES IN A PROFESSIONAL COMMUNITY OF SOCIAL WORKERS Line Søberg Bjerre

In February 2010, a young girl fled out into the snow of the Danish countryside, escaping from her parent’s house. She revealed that she had been in captivity, sexually abused, and neglected. It turned out that the nine other children belonging to this family were also massively neglected and subjected to violence. This became one case in a line cases of child molest, abuse and neglect that were publicly revealed. The Danish media followed the cases and blamed social workers of the local authorities for not intervening on time and for not reacting to several child protection notifications from other professionals. This chapter offers an insight into social work practice that concerns the most vulnerable people in the Danish society—disadvantaged children and their families. The social workers describe and analyze the families’ needs and plan interventions, sometimes in cooperation with the family, sometimes not. The Danish welfare state has granted the social workers authority and power to intervene in the private family sphere. However,

Cultural Psychology in Communities: Tensions and Transformations, pp. 65–78 Copyright © 2020 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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there has been a great deal of attention in the media and among politicians to social work with children and families due to tragic cases of child neglect and abuse. Cases in which the social workers did not intervene on time. The political response to the tragic cases has been a discourse that values objectivism, linearity, evidence-based knowledge and more administrative procedures, to make sure that the social workers intervene when necessary. All of these procedures and regulations, checklists, and IT systems seem to overlook the complexities of human beings living together. Because of the media attention to cases of neglect, and abuse, investigations were conducted to know what went wrong. In 2012, expert reports revealed problems such as prolonged casework, not taking children’s perspectives sufficiently into account, a lack of overview of the cases and treatment of symptoms not causes (Ankestyrelsen, 2012; Socialministeriet, 2012). It was reported that errors were made particularly when social workers had known the families for years but did not intervene; when there wasn’t enough transfer of knowledge between the local authorities; when the families moved from one municipality to another; when there was a lack of cooperation with the police; when the problems in the families were not investigated and when there was a lack of interventions. The list was long, and this caused legislative changes of how to handle child protection notifications and the procedures in cases of suspected child molest and abuse were changed (Act of Social Service, Part 11). In combination with legislative changes, new methods were introduced to the field of practice and there has been a dramatic increase of demands for documentation. Thus, social work has been subjected to many changes over the past ten years, aiming at improving the quality of social work and cost-effectiveness, by preventing neglect and abuse, and by making sure that social work is not conducted randomly. Evidence based interventions are preferred and recommended and procedures have been implemented. However, the changes also reflect a general managerial kind of thinking in the public sector. A purchaser—supplier model has been implemented, causing a businesslike organization that requires high levels of documentation at both the authority and execution levels (Servicestyrelsen, 2011). The amount of documentation has resulted in complaints from social workers, claiming that all these regulations and procedures take all their time and that they have little time left to talk with the families (Christiansen, 2018). So, a linear logic seems to be imposed on the social work practice, contributing to an understanding of good practice consisting of evidence based linear processes with high efficiency (Broadhurset et al., 2010; Ferguson, 2003). But does social work also play out this way? This is one of the questions I set out to study. My investigation explored how social workers create meaning about the family’s needs. This is of importance, as their interventions are based on their interpretation of these

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needs. But how do they develop their understanding? Which processes happen in a professional community of social workers, when striving to make sense of the limited pieces of information providing insights into the needs of the family and ultimately, to intervene? In the following, I will explore these issues with the concepts addressing the human processes of meaning making. After introducing the concepts, I will describe the methods used in this case study, before I present the example that I will analyze. Lastly, I will reflect upon nomothetic and ideographic forms of knowledge in the social work practice. NEGOTIATIONS OF MEANING The social workers do not exactly know what goes on in families. They navigate in a complex and highly normative field of vague and thick descriptions of behavior, fragments of stories and opinions and impressions held by family members, teachers, doctors, psychologists and so on. The social workers have much information from other professionals, their own casefiles and impressions of the family. However, there is a lot of information they do not have (Egelund, 1997; Egelund & Hestbæk, 2003; Ferguson, 2005; Kildedal et al., 2011). In my inquiry into social worker practice, I observed how a professional community of social workers, navigate these processes and how they negotiate meaning in complex cases. The complexity of the cases, concerns that there are multiple and also often conflicting voices and stories about the well-being of the child, and concerning the reason for the problems they identify in the families. For example, the teachers may see a child that does not thrive, while the parents refuse that this has to do with problems at home; but then the teachers have thick descriptions of parents not accommodating what the teachers believe to be the needs of the child. Thereby, occurrence of doubt seems to be a premise of social work practice, the social workers need to navigate these conflicting issues and to use their own training about children’s developmental needs and how these are meet. However, this is difficult to know for sure, because each child, each parent and family are unique and cannot be met with generalized understandings. The social work with children and families seems to be a bricolage, where the social workers select certain parts of family life and put it together in a narrative form (Egelund & Hestbæk, 2003). To understand this practice, I am drawing on cultural psychological concepts. I have been interested in the social workers professional culture. By culture I mean the dynamic processes, that creates connections of meaning (Hasse, 2002). Culture, according to Shweder et al. (2008) involves meanings, concepts, and interpretations, which are activated and constructed through social institutions, language practices, and routines.

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Culture involves acts of meaning, and the social meaning systems in the community of social workers, establish and develop certain forms of acting, speaking, thinking, and feeling. The concept of negotiation is used to explain and understand how the social workers did not only listen to each other, but discussed the cases by contributing to each other’s narratives and stories about the children and families, sometimes introducing new narratives. Drawing on Valsiner (2014) who brings back to our attention Karl Bühler’s organon model, communication consists of three functions: 1. Expression—the speaker constructs a message, using signs, from the point of personal subjectivity. 2. Appeal—the receiver cannot avoid the message, encoded in signs. It is out there to be received; however, it implies a process of active reconstruction. 3. Representation—both the speaker and the receiver refers to an external world, but their worlds can never be the exact same because of the two different personal positions. Valsiner adds Bühler’s principle of abstractive relevance to these functions: On the basis of perceivable properties of the sign-material (be it speechsounds, or colors, or patterns in textiles), by way of convention, a new abstracted meaning of signs appears. Thus far, Bühler’s model captures the realities of communication. While we communicate about some aspects of our shared environment, we not only attribute signs to these and negotiate (between Sender and Receiver) whose sign assignment we use here-andnow, we also immediately “jump” to “adding value”—personal affective flavor—to the object we reference. (Valsiner, 2014, p. 56)

The words we say, the signs we use, become mediators of meaning, which are applied by both sender and receiver. These meanings are conveyed by generalized signs, abstracts and generalizations, which makes us able to reflect upon the world. According to Valsiner (2014, p. 57) “such reflections transcend irreversible time, creating sign fields that can be considered to be beyond the generalized categories—hyper-generalized sign fields.” In the process of abstraction, we use our past experiences and our imagination of future possibilities, in the hyper-generalized sign field, we extend into the unknown future and reconstruct the memory of the past. With the example below, I will illustrate these processes of meaning making through negotiations in the hyper-generalized sign field. Before doing so, I will describe the research method used in my case study of social work practice.

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METHODOLOGY In a case study of a Danish municipality, I have observed team meetings in three teams of social workers. As I was interested in how social workers navigate complex cases, I used a participant observation research method (Geertz, 1973; Kristiansen & Krogstrup, 1999; Spradley 1980), which is sensitive to human activity, as a process in which negotiations happen. The reason for this choice is to gain access into the functioning of social work practice and to see how social workers in a community of peers create meaning from the fragmented knowledge they gain from and about the families they work with. How do they choose to understand the families, the problems, the well-being of the child, and how do they intervene? Procedures, IT-systems, legislation and methods all describe elements of what is decided about how social work should proceed. Yet, I was interested in how they actually do social work and how they create meaning about it, rather than what procedures tells them to do. Particularly, I was interested in how they do social work together and make sense of their work together. The method of observation is not neutral and cannot be disentangled from me as an observer, from my background as a social worker and as a child psychologist and from the puzzle I try to solve when I formulate research questions (Law, 2004). The observations I made of social work practice are not decontextualized. In the words of Marsico (2012, p. 139), I “jumped into the practice,” placing myself in the context and process of social work, investigating the meanings that are present in the practice. This way, I have studied social work team meetings during three years, aiming at understanding the specific cultural practices by being in the room and learning about how social work unfolds. In this chapter, I will present a dialogue from one of the meetings I observed. The example is representative of the dialogues and negotiations of meaning that unfold in these meetings and it is particularly suitable as an example, because many things happen over a short time. Participant observation as a research method, according to Spradley (1980), is both a matter of observing what people do, how they use artefacts and listen to what they say. In this process, data are generated concerning talks, movements, contexts and situations. To grasp the more embodied parts of practice, I have field notes of mimicry, of moving bodies and of my own reactions. This is an attempt to create data, not only of the spoken word, but also of the complexities of the situation. As the human experience is subjective, formed by a lived past and anticipated future (Valsiner, 2014), I used my first-person perspective: If we look at human subjectivity more closely, it becomes apparent that its psychological dimensions, such as experience, emotionality, thought and

70  L. S. BJERRE action, are present in a specific form of existence—the first-person mode. On the one hand human experiencing, feeling, thinking, acting with and in the world are always sociomaterially mediated processes (through language, others and the social and technological world); on the other hand, they are always someone’s processes. (Schraube, 2013, p. 20)

In the following presentation of an example, I will describe these sociomaterially-mediated processes as they were observed by me, in terms of bodies, sensations and the words spoken. The dialogue in the example occurs in the middle of a team meeting. Social worker Anna tells about a family, a case in which healthcare professionals are worried about an infant girl who is withdrawing from contact. The baby “Julie” is only a few weeks old. She has older siblings, but it is the baby that the professionals are worried about, even though she eats and gains weight. She seems to have withdrawn from eye contact and it is not easy to get her to engage in interaction. This is what the social worker and health professional are worried about. They are drawing on knowledge about infant social development and see the pattern of withdrawing as a sign or a risk of the child being neglected. Therefore, it is the behavior of the baby that concerns the social workers and this is what they discuss in their professional community. At the same time, they do not really know what goes on in the family, so they have to piece different scenarios together to comprehend the situation and the possible risk for the baby’s safety and development. Piecing together past and present, they talk about their impressions of the parents, of Julie and about situations in which Julie’s brother Marcus was a baby. A Case-Study Example1 [The social worker Anna is responsible for the case, she gives a lot of background information during the meeting. Here she shares some stories about the mother’s past.] “She was depressed as a teenager, so she had difficulties before she became a mother. She was self-harming, extremely sensitive, she thought people were talking about her, heard voices. Perhaps psychotic. She cut herself on the arms, breasts and stomach. She was depressed and in pain, and this was when the older brother Marcus was born. I, provided psychological help and free day care. She had such a hard time letting him go out of the house. Then she moves to the home of the parents of the baby’s father. We are not in contact with her for years. From the other municipality there are several notifications;—it was the grandparents, who took care of the baby. The mother slept 20–22 hours a day. The grandparents told the social worker that the mother was sad, because Marcus did not want physical contact unless he was sad. So sometimes she made him sad and sometimes she scared him, only so she could comfort him.”

Meaning Making Processes in a Professional Community   71 [A little later, an experienced social worker Bridget marks that she has something to say] Bridget says, “So I would like to return to Julie, the fact that she had blue lips. Why did she have that? Is that connected to why there is no contact? Why did she get better, and now she is getting worse again? What happened?” [She pauses and continues]: “Well, I think”… [She pauses again]. “What do you think?” Anna asks. Bridget replies, “I could have the hypothesis that she has been exposed to something,” [Bridget pauses again.] [Nobody says anything]. [I can feel that I am freezing, the bodies in the room straighten up, all are looking at Bridget, but no one is saying anything]. Eventually Bridget says, “It is a horrible thing to say.” A young social worker Sidsel asks, “Do you think she has been shaken?” Bridget replies, “Yes.” Another social worker Ann interferes, “Okay … is mom on medication or?” [Ignoring the question,] Bridget says, “it doesn’t have to be so violent, that she has bleeding in her eyes.” Anna says, “Yes, we do see that she is withdrawing,” “Yes” Bridget replies. Anna says, “Well, the care center is offering a lot of help, the healthcare worker is helping and watching the family. I have to be clear, they have to tell me, if she [the baby] cannot handle being in this state. It is them, they know this right? And then, I have to take action according to what they say. But they have to be attentive they shouldn’t be doing anything else.” Bridget says, “I just can’t help thinking that the mother harmed Marcus so she could comfort him.” [Anna leans forward, and takes both hands up in front of her face. She raises her voice] “Oooooooooh stop it.”

Often the social workers supplement each other, they are synchronized and support each other, but sometimes they get out of sync and one disrupts the consensus that is being established. These shifts are dramatic, as is this situation where Bridget introduces the risk story—that baby Julie might be shaken. This story becomes central in the negotiation of meaning between the social workers. Bridget’s story is not documented, but it is plausible when they connect the dots between certain aspects of the mother’s story of motherhood and the baby’s withdrawing behavior.

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When Bridget says, “I could have the hypothesis that she has been exposed to something,” she airs a message that she constructed from her personal subjectivity in the hyper generalized sign field, reconstructing past stories and extending them into an unknown present and future. The rest of the community reconstructs the abstracted meaning of the consequences of the sign. They first react similarly, with silence, but further along they use different signs to mediate their doubt and worry, which they convey adding personal affective flavor. The team meeting becomes an arena of what is documentable and what are old ghosts and stories. The ghosts are there, taking the form of constructions of violent parents, but it is difficult to handle, as there can be different and a lot less dramatic causes of the baby withdrawing. To create meaning the social workers have: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Baby Julie’s behavior Their own embodied impression of the parents now Past impressions from when the brother was a baby Case files with descriptions of the older brother and child protection notifications 5. The words and stories from the parents 6. The words and stories from other professionals These elements are used at different times during the meeting, and are mixed up in subjective and emotional mutual meaning making processes, which also draw on their experiences with other cases, their training, their knowledge on child abuse, the cultural norms of parenting etcetera. Bridget’s story creates fear, because it points to what must not happen and none of the social workers knows what takes place in the family home. They have to make meaning out of, what Ferguson (2005, p. 788) calls: “snapshots, fleeting images and fragments of human beings lived experiences.” The social worker is in doubt between how much she believes in the potential of helping the parent in contrast to the worry about the child’s safety. In a similar way, other team meetings I observed often did not construct a linear shared story of the family’s problems and the child’s development, but were fragmented and emotional processes of negotiation of meaning, which eventually ended in a narrative that the social worker decided to entertain in the continued work with the families. These meaning making processes in the community could look chaotic and random to the observer. Such impressions also form a repeated critique in the research into social work practice (Egelund & Hestbæk, 2003; Kildedal et al., 2011). Yet, what constructed meaning at the team meeting were not just signs consisting of words, but also affective signs that the social workers shared in being together and making meaning of the fragments of newly

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reconstructed stories about past and present. The emotions and bodily movements were all formed by semiotically mediating frames and patterns, which was characteristic for this team (Slaby, 2014; Valsiner, 2013). Brinkmann and Kofod (2018) introduce the notion of a cultural affective niche, which is a temporarily and spatially limited arena in which certain forms of affect and emotions are scaffolded and enacted. This affective niche was a part of the community that the social workers formed together. It coupled the person and the environment and it made affective states possible. Often these situations of being affected together occurred at the team meetings. It was part of their practice. When they were all silent, this was a mutual sign, communicating emotional impact and importance. When Anna raised her hands to embrace her face with the palm of her hands, this also communicated affect and importance. Her fear or worry was not an inner mental object, but manifested in her living human body, in the time and context of the team meeting, in an affective niche (Brinkmann & Kofod, 2018). Anna’s hands and utterance “ooohh stop” show an embodied emotion, but are also signs in a contextual embedded and scaffolded situation. The community of social workers have shared signs of showing importance with silence, showing significance with the hands to the face. Scripts that are not just in the head of each member of the team, but in the community’s practice and their way of doing social work together. However, the emotional and embodied part of the meaning making process in practice were not talked about, these processes had no professional language. Often the social workers said things like “this is not to be decided by gut feeling,” and they talked about their professional assessment as objective, neutral and based on knowledge. Which is also reflected in the way social work practice is organized and talked about in administrative procedures, legislation and through policy (Bjerre, 2017). CHAOS, RANDOMNESS, OR JUST NOT LINEAR LOGICS? Social work can indeed look messy, chaotic and random. In reality, children sometimes do not get the appropriate help at the right time. The result has been the understanding of good practice responding to the logics of productivity, efficiency, and linearity—and the social workers talk about their practice as if they use the linear logics (Broadhurst et al., 2010; Fergusson, 2003). Nevertheless, in my observations of their practice, they do not do social work the way they talk about doing social work. They use other strategies in the processes of figuring out the needs of the family and children than the linear strategy that they talk about, which is encouraged by those at the political and organizational levels.

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The example in this chapter illustrates that the social workers rather than working in linear and effective models work in a professional community of shared meaning making processes, shared narratives and anecdotes. I saw in Danish practice, what Broadhurst et al. (2010) indicate as an undertheorized and underrepresented part of practice. An important part of the social workers’ practice with children and families is left in an “epistemological shade.” In the shade an unheeded professionalism of story sharing and circular processes of establishing meaning occurs. According to Bruner (1991), stories serve as a tool for the social negotiations of meaning. In their community, the social workers try to connect the dots to make the unknown known. It is in these processes of making the unknown known that the social workers negotiate meaning. Ricoeur (1991) writes that the stories are ways to describe connections, but they are not fully interpreted; they fuel the imagination (Jensen, 2010). It is the stories that the social workers use to grasp the present and imagine the future. Because the children’s development and conditions are seen both in a present and a future perspective. NOMOTHETIC AND IDIOGRAPHIC FORMS OF KNOWLEDGE This “epistemological shade” is parallel to what Valsiner (2017, p. 17) calls “the tension in psychological methodology,” the battle between scientific and anecdotal—or in the case of the social workers: the evidence-based, objective knowledge, and the belittled form of “anecdotal” knowledge, which the social workers use, but are not supposed to. When we understand the social workers’ community from an open-system perspective, the use of nonstandardization makes sense. Conventionalization is not possible, because each family is unique. In their doing social work the community of social workers resists the linear logics, based on nomothetic understandings of knowledge. Instead, they are working idiographically in an attempt to comprehend the complexity of human lives and relations (Salvatore & Valsiner, 2010). Figure 4.1 illustrates the discrepancy between how the social workers talk about social work, and how they do social work. The practice in the social work community is understood with logics of positivism, according to which rationality is the most valued norm. It is all about systematics, objectivity, evidence and method. However, circular meaning making processes also happen, involving the connection of dots by sharing stories, being affected together by these stories and spending time in the community living through processes of sense making, emotionality, and embodiment. If we go back to the example this point is illustrated. Bridget shares a story of risk by connecting the dots of a child withdrawing, a mother that

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Figure 4.1.  Idiographic and nomothetic traditions in social work practice.

has been self-harming, and a story about the mother making the older brother sad so that she could comfort him. These three stories become a new story—the story about baby Julie being physically harmed. This can seem random and not systematic, but we can also understand this way of sensemaking in a professional community as a circularity of the stories surrounding problems and solutions, creating different realities that become supplemented by anecdotes from the social workers. Social work practice involves understandings of biological, psychological, and social conditions and possibilities. In that sense, social work practice is placed, like psychology, between the natural sciences, human sciences, and social sciences. However, the epistemology of the social worker practice has been dominated by positivism and the logics often seen in natural sciences. In a nomothetic tradition, is the case management and the tradition of social diagnosing, the social agency’s understanding of evidence as true

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knowledge, understandings of essence, labels, and measuring and the demands for methods. This is an understanding parallel to the logics of law and medicine. In an ideographic tradition, the social workers investigate the single case with stories, anecdotes, and emotionality. They negotiate their understanding in the community. In an ideographic tradition, the aim is not to develop more methods, but to use methodology that is able to grasp the phenomena. Drawing on Brinkmann and Valsiner (2016, p. 77), methodology is not a “toolbox” nor a set of “hegemonic generalization tools.” Methodology is an epistemological cycle, which involves different components such as intuitive experiencing, subjects relating with the world, constructed theory and methods, phenomena and basic assumptions. The concept of methodology enables an embodied and emotional process, which might help the social workers to work more holistically. In addition, the social workers are pragmatic—they have to find “the least dirty solution to an ugly problem” (Turnell & Edwards, 1999). In this vein, the storytelling, the connection of dots, the silence, laughter, and sadness were all scaffolded by the community’s affective niche. The team meetings, in an idiographic tradition, call for understanding and a theorizing of the processes that also happen in practice. The epistemology of the social workers I studied stood in the shade and they weren’t able to reflect upon their practice, lacking a language to understand the meaning making processes in their community and in the affective niche where they did social work together. There is, in the words of Bruner (2004), an asymmetry between what we do and how we talk about what we do. Hence, we draw a false dichotomy between sense-rationality and emotionality. CLOSING REMARKS In a time of New Public Management and increased levels of demands for documentation, based on a belief that complex human phenomenon can be measured, the understandings from cultural psychology give a new opportunity to grasp the complexity of human life as it is lived. The distinction between methods and methodology, support the argument that the community of social workers can be understood as navigating the difficult cases creating knowledge together through a methodology that is able to grasp life complexities (Brinkmann & Valsiner, 2016; Valsiner, 2017). The “not talked about” processes of meaning making in the professional community are central to what is done in practice and how we as scholars can understand practices of social work. If the nomothetic understandings stand alone, we devaluate and ignore the meaning making processes and emotions at the core of the professional community doing social work together.

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The cultural psychological concepts used in this chapter are open to new understandings of what constitutes social work practices. It is an idiographic practice characterized by processes in a community of professionals, navigating the methodology of meaning making in complex situations. These unseen processes in social work communities are best described with the metaphor of a puzzle. The social workers have to resolve the puzzle, but they do not know the frame beforehand. Slowly and with the use of multiple anecdotes they establish a full picture that consists of experience, theory about social work, causal relationships, and the many negotiations about when a piece in the puzzle is a valid piece (Bjerre, 2017). NOTE 1. A part of this example is also published in Bjerre (2017, 2019).

REFERENCES Ankestyrelsen. (2012). Kulegravning af sager om overgreb mod børn og unge. Kbh. Retrieved April 7, 2019, from http://hdl.handle.net/109.1.3/3eda7769-516e464d-8640-72bce698f1fe Act on Social Service. (Danish). Part 11. Retrieved April 7, 2019, from http://english. sm.dk/media/14900/consolidation-act-on-social-services.pdf Bjerre, L. S. (2017). Fortællinger om og konstruktioner af børn i socialt myndighedsarbejde (PhD thesis). Aalborg University. Brinkmann, S., & Kofod, E. H. (2018). Grief as an extended emotion. Culture and Psychology, 24(2), 160–173. Brinkmann, S., & Valsiner J. (2016). Beyond the “variables”: Developing metalanguage for psychology. In S. H. Klempe & R. Smith (Ed.), Centrality of history for theory construction in psychology. Springer. Broadhurst, K., Hall, C., Wastell, D., White. S., & Pithouse, A. (2010). Risk, instrumentalism and the humane project in social work: Identifying the informal logics of risk management in the children’s statutory services. British Journal of Social Work, 40, 352–370. Bruner, J. (1991). The narrative construction of reality. Critical Inquiry, 18(1), 1–21. Bruner, J. (2004). At fortælle historier i juraen, i litteraturen og i livet. Alinea. Christiansen, B. H. (2018). Debat om fejl i børnesager ruller videre. Socialrådgiveren, 18(11), 24–25. Geertz, C. (1973). Thick description: Toward an interpretive theory of culture. In C. Geertz (Ed.), The interpretation of cultures: Selected essays (pp. 3–30). Basic Books. Egelund, T. (1997). Beskyttelse af barndommen: Socialforvaltningers risikovurdering og indgreb. Hans Reitzels Forlag.

78  L. S. BJERRE Egelund, T., & Hestbæk A. (2003). Anbringelse af børn og unge uden for hjemmet. En forskningsoversigt. Socialforskningsinstituttet. Ferguson, H. (2003). Outline of a critical best practice perspective on social work and social care. The British Journal of Social Work, 33(8), 1005–1024. Fergusson, H. (2005). Working with violence, the emotions and the psycho-social dynamics of child protection: Reflection on the Victoria Climbie case. Social Work Education, 24, 781–795. Hasse, C. (2002). Kultur i bevægelse - fra deltagerobservation til kulturanalyse - i det fysiske rum. Samfundslitteratur. Jensen, M. (2010). Det ufærdige arbejde (PhD thesis). Aalborg University. Kildedal, K., Uggerhøj, L., Nordstoga, S., & Sagatun, S. (2011). Å bli undersøkt: Norske og danske forældres erfaringer med barnvernsundersøgelen. Universitetsforlaget. Kristiansen, S., & Krogstrup, H. K. (1999). Deltagende observation. Hans Reitzels Forlag. Law, J. (2004). After method. Mess in social science research. Routledge. Marsico, G. (2012). Idiographic science: Its polyphonic arena and need for reflexivity. In S. Salvatore, A. Gennaro, & J. Valsiner (Eds.), Making sense of infinite uniqueness (pp. 133–146). Information Age Publishing. Ricoeur, P. (1991). From text to action. Northwestern University Press. Salvatore, S., & Valsiner, J. (2010). Between the general and the unique: Overcoming the nomothetic versus idiographic opposition. Theory & Psychology, 20(6), 817–833. Schraube, E. (2013). First-person perspective and sociomaterial decentering: Studying technology from the standpoint of the subject. Subjectivity, 6(1), 12–32. Servicestyrelsen. (2011). Håndbog om Barnets Reform. Kbh. Retrieved April 7, 2019, from http://socialstyrelsen.dk/udgivelser/handbog-om-barnets-reform Shweder, R., Haidt, J. Horton, R., Joseph C. (2008). The cultural psychology of the emotions ancient and renewed. In M. Lewis & J. Haviland (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (3rd ed., pp. 417–431). Guilford Press. Slaby, J. (2014). Emotions and the extended mind. In C. I .Von Scheve & M. Salmela (Eds.), Collective emotions (pp. 32–46). Oxford University Press Socialministeriet & Ekspertpanel om overgreb mod børn. (2012). Rapport fra ekspertpanel om overgreb mod børn. Socialministeriet. Retrieved April 7, 2019, from https://socialstyrelsen.dk/filer/born/overgreb/bornehus-filer/rapportfra-ekspertpanel-om-overgreb-mod-born.pdf Spradley, J. P. (1980). Participant observation. Waveland Press. Turnell, A., & Edwards, S. (1999). Signs of safety: A safety and solution oriented approach to child protection casework. Norton. Valsiner, J. (2013). Cultural psychology and its future: Complementarity in a new key. Inaugural lecture of the Niels Bohr Professorship Centre of Cultural Psychology, University of Aalborg. In B. Wagoner, N. Chaudhary, & P. Hviid (Eds.), A volume in: Niels Bohr professorship lectures in cultural psychology. Information Age Publishing. Valsiner, J. (2014). An invitation to cultural psychology. SAGE. Valsiner, J. (2017). From methodology to methods in human psychology. Springer.

CHAPTER 5

MAKING MEANING OF DISABILITY IN RESIDENTS’ MEETINGS FOR MUNICIPAL WELFARE POLICY Masakuni Tagaki

In his chapter I present a study examining a series of “advanced” residents’ meetings (RMs) for municipal disability policy in Japan. Through action research, I examine a collaborative process among people with disabilities1 (PWDs), municipal officials and residents engaged in welfare activities that transpire during the RMs. Three theoretical frameworks are relevant in this context. First, I employ the three community organizational goals— tasks, processes, and relationships—specified by Ross (1955) with respect to members’ experiences and organizational development. Second, I employed the sense-making theory (Weick, 1995), which is based on the narratives of the organization’s members. Finally, I found the disability identity theory (Gill, 1997) to be important in understanding specific issues of the RMs for disability policy.

Cultural Psychology in Communities: Tensions and Transformations, pp. 79–101 Copyright © 2020 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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Disability in Japan The administrative role of Japan’s municipal governments in disability policy formulation has been expanding commensurately with the increase in the numbers of PWDs in Japan over the years. According to the Cabinet Office of the Government of Japan (COGJ, 2018, 2012), approximately 9.3 million Japanese people and nearly 7% of the total population have physical or intellectual disabilities or mental disorders—which is a 20% increase, compared to 7.4 million in 2012. Furthermore, public interest regarding the needs of PWDs has increased over time. In a recent public survey on people’s behavior and attitudes towards PWDs, approximately 60% of the respondents reported that they had helped PWDs (COGJ, 2017). Nevertheless, 83.9% of the respondents stated that prejudice or discrimination against PWDs exists, which is similar to the response of 83% of the respondents of a 2007 survey (COGJ, 2007, 2017). The Disabled Persons’ Fundamental Law (Japanese Law No. 84), amended in 2007, states that every municipal government in Japan must devise a basic action plan for disability policy. An action plan broadly formulates disability policy applicable to various fields, such as disability service, education, employment, and medical care. It promotes a barrier-free urban development and public understanding towards PWDs’ participation in social activities. Hindrances to PWDS’ Involvement in Municipal Disability Policy and Opinion Exchange Municipal governments experience difficulties in enhancing PWDs’ involvement in disability policy formulation and opinion exchange (Tagaki, 2017). According to the COGJ (2014), only 11% of the members of municipal councils on disability policy are PWDs, of whom 95% have physical disabilities. In other words, the membership of people with intellectual disabilities or mental health issues is low. The municipal council is an official organization that discusses a variety of disability-related issues and drafts the basic action plan for disability policy in an area. Furthermore, discussions across different types of disability are insufficient since the disability welfare system addresses three disability categories: physical, intellectual, and mental disabilities (Tagaki, 2017). Physical disabilities encompass four categories: mobility, visual, hearing and speech, and internal disabilities (e.g., heart disease, kidney disease, or other chronic illnesses that result in disability). Members of the municipal council experience difficulty in finding a common ground across the different types of

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disability within this system. The members are often compelled to discuss their personal experiences in detail. However, Japanese society considers disability an individual’s personal matter that should not be discussed with other people with different disabilities (Iwakuma, 2003). Therefore, the municipal council members with disabilities might be reluctant to share their experiences with each other. The disability policy was implemented after the Second World War. The main welfare services were initially provided in institutions. Although deinstitutionalization and independent living progressed due to the disability movement engagements, PWDs were faced with architectural barriers, prejudice, and limited personal care (Hayashi & Okuhira, 2001). Japan has a strong cultural norm that parents of PWDs should take care of their children even as adults (Tagaki, 2016). Elderly parents of adults with severe disabilities often institutionalize them, as safety, caregiving and meals are guaranteed. An individual’s ability to maintain independent bodily functions is often considered a prerequisite to participation in social activities (e.g., employment and leisure), although disability movements have opposed that opinion since the 1970s (Tagaki, 2016). Wright’s (1983) theory of value change greatly influenced the development of rehabilitation psychology in Japan, but despite her intentions, it was considered to focus too much on the individual mind, and lesser on social dynamics (Tagaki, 2016). PWDs’ fending for themselves is stressed, rather than the reform of social norms that devalued them. Three Dimensions of Community Organizations The community organization theory (Ross, 1955) is a useful tool to examine the process by which members participate in municipal councils. Ross argued that three organizational dimensions should be considered when researching a community organization: task, process, and relationship. According to the principal research conducted in Japan (e.g., Kayama, 2010), the task goal of community work is to solve a specific community problem in a certain area, and the process goal is to enhance residents’ participation in welfare activities or strengthen their capacity to solve community problems. By contrast, the relationship goal is to establish collaboration between residents and relevant community organizations or network with related groups and activities in a certain area. Tagaki (2017) remarked that both the task and relationship goals are important bases for community work, although the task goal tends to be valued most by local officials, social welfare professionals and PWDs in Japan.

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Action Research and Sense-Making Through Narrative The three organizational aspects described by Ross (1955) are closely related to action research (Lewin, 1948). The distinctiveness of action research is that it aims to solve social issues in the research field. The researcher intensively participates in the field and collaborates with the members of the field to transform the social reality. The field has many meanings such as health system, a community, and an organization (e.g., school or company). For example, Nagata (2013) observed how Lewin’s (1948) approach was applied in studies on residents’ participation in community organizations (Hanny & O’Connor, 2013) and health professionals in local governments (Noro, 2012). These studies have examined the development of members’ perceptions as well as the outcomes of their activities. According to Hanny and O’Connor (2013), the residents found that their opinion exchange in itself works as a venue for interracial and democratic speaking, as well as for collecting ideas for community planning. Noro (2012) remarked that for public health nurses, a major administration transition during the merger of municipal governments was an opportunity to maximize their professional capacities. As Nagata (2013) showed, action research connects to sense-making theory, since sense-making is a process by which people give meaning to their experiences through narratives (Weick, 1995). Weick (1995) developed the sense-making theory to analyze narratives during decisionmaking processes, such as problem-solving, judgment, or determination processes within organizations. Since decisions are based on meanings, decision-making is a product of the sense-making process. Furthermore, if an organizational member tells about his or her decision-making having a positive result, that narrative gives meaning to the decision-making process. Both Weick’s work and cultural psychology value people’s daily meaning-making process under the auspices of social and cultural context. Weick was significantly influenced by Bruner’s (1986) narrative theory. Organizational sense-making is a process that creates a policy for future behavior, rather than involving a mere recall of past events or interpretation of experiences. According to Valsiner (2007), meaning making through interaction with society and culture can also give meaning to imagined future experiences. Similarly, sense-making is defined not as an individual’s inner monologue, but as a social dialogue that develops in response to the agreements or objections of others, depending on social and cultural backgrounds (Yamori, 2008). A cultural psychological approach to everyday resistances (Chaudhary et al., 2017) indicate a strong connection between sense-making theory and meaning making. Chaudhary et al. (2017) observed that resistance

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is neither an extraordinary occurrence nor a counterproductive event; rather, it is an ordinary life event, where intentional process and those involved in resistance constantly seek new meanings through thinking, feeling, and acting. Awad et al. (2017) considered resistance through graffiti as an example of how personal, interpersonal, collective, and social systems intersect. I argue that the RMs are a form of resistance as they constantly appeal to the members’ social and cultural positions, as well as their strength and willingness to participate in social activities in the wider community. Combining action research and narrative methods is useful for researchers to reflect on their own positions in a project. Moreover, significant interactions occur between investigators and research subjects in action research. Oliver (1997) argued that irrespective of the research design, researchers are incapable of adopting a neutral stance. His perspective opposes to the positivist paradigm that researchers should maintain objectivity. He suggests that researchers who use action research designs should reflect on their personal values, as well as the roles that their research subjects expect them take (Seekins & White, 2013). Action Research in the RMs Some municipal governments began holding regular RMs for disability policy to hear the opinions and encourage the participation of PWDs in policy-making. Residents’ opinions, as they commonly do not have professional knowledge, were considered to be based on their daily experiences. I studied RMs conducted in Yao City, in the suburban area of Osaka in western Japan since 2002, focusing on the developments from 2002 to 2007, during which I attended the meetings as both an advisor and a researcher (Tagaki, 2017). Currently, the population of Yao City is approximately 270,000, of which nearly 15,000 (about 5.5% of the population) have disabilities (Yao City, 2018). The disability section of Yao’s municipal government (hereafter Yao disability section) launched RMs in 2002 to formulate the upcoming second-term action plan for disability policy (Yao City, 2003). The issuance of the action plan was regularly implemented based on the discussions at the Yao Council for Disability Policy (hereafter, the Yao Council). However, the Yao disability section was concerned that this discussion would only benefit professionals or residents with organizational knowledge due to the composition of its membership, and therefore RMs comprising common people, such as regular PWDs, welfare practitioners, and volunteer activists, were established (see Table 5.1).

84  M. TAGAKI Table 5.1. Profile of the Yao Council and the RMs The Yao Council

the Main Role

the Membership

Number of members and membership term

A high-ranking disability policy entity to promote, manage and evaluate the progress of action plans.

The RMs Discussion of disability policy and sharing related experiences among common people with disabilities. Holding annual citizen’s symposium on disability issues

Academic professionals, high-ranking welfare/health professionals, municipal official, representatives of public organizations.

Individuals with physical disabilities, mild intellectual disabilities or mental disorders in remission; the families of PWDs; and the members of sign language clubs.

Most of the members are appointed by the Yao City government, based on the recommendation of the organizations they belong to.

Most of the members are appointed by the Yao City government using the snow-balling method. The Yao officials called for members in the Yao official monthly letters.

20 members with two-year membership

20 members with one-year membership

Reappointment is possible

Reappointment is possible

Note: The RMs are organized subordinately to the Yao Council. Apart from me, none of the members has held a post on the Yao Council.

Some members voluntarily signed up as key members, actively leading the meetings, with the approval from all the members such as the government staff, the author, and regular members. The members shared their disability-related experiences, despite the differences in their disabilities with the key members’ chair. They began campaigning against parked bikes and publishing of disaster prevention material using public funds. Goal Accomplishments as Sense-Making and Narrative The RMs might be considered advanced due to the accomplishment of most of the three goals mentioned above. Tagaki (2017) suggested that the RMs’ narratives enabled the realization of both the task and process goals, since discussions, or sense-making, about current disability issues during the meetings led to local policy formulation. The policy formulation is not the only objective of such meetings; sense-making of the daily experiences of PWDs is also an important aspect.

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Research Objective I conducted a follow-up study of the RMs at Yao, because the earlier study on this topic was conducted a long time ago and changes have occurred (Tagaki, 2017). Tao (2007) remarked that all organizations valuing the sharing of experiences (e.g., self-help groups) tend to encounter issues, such as hierarchical relationships, promotion of members’ self-interests, concentration of workload on some members, and conflicts of interests, as the organizations’ activities expand over time. The main objective of this study was to examine the development of an “advanced” RM for municipal disability policy-making, which accomplishes the three community activity goals well: task, process, and relationship. I conducted the follow-up study of the RMs during the fiscal year (FY) 2008 to FY 2012—the effective period of the third-term action plan for disability policy (Yao City, 2008), focusing on members’ interrelationships and involvement in the meetings, new policy accomplishments and tasks, and researcher’s roles.2 The Yao Council members decided to continue promoting the RMs, both because they considered them as important arenas where PWDs can share their experiences, and due to the significant achievements of such meetings. The respective profiles of the two organizations are similar to those in Table 5.1. METHOD Data Collection and Analysis The data used in this study include field notes, handouts delivered by Yao City officials, my e-mails with the officials, and transcripts of RM proceedings. In my field notes, I noted the progress of RMs, statements by key members, discussions among members, my personal reflections, and members’ reactions. My analysis of the development of the meetings was based on the mentioned written resources. I employed the “KJ method,” which is a bottom-up qualitative method developed by a Japanese ethnologist Jiro Kawakita (1967). He adapted this method from Charles S. Peirce’s concept of abduction, which relies on intuitive thinking processes to identify explanatory hypotheses (Scupin, 1997). The standard KJ method adopted in this study has the following general steps: carefully reading transcripts, extracting quotations from the transcripts, assigning a code (a summary label or index) to each quotation, developing categories by grouping codes, and summarizing categories and the relationships among them. Both the grounded theory methodology (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) and the KJ method

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develop connections among categories using the codes generated from segmented text data. However, there are some differences between the two methods. The goal of the former is to logically develop and integrate categories into a theory, whereas that of the latter is to create new connections between ideas or concepts that could create contradictory or illogical categories (Nochi, 2013). This distinctiveness of the KJ method connects to the emphasis on abduction in cultural psychology. According to Valsiner (2007, 2018a), abductive methodology can enable new possible retroactive explanations about past events that does not mean a mere retrospection of these, but interference that can provide meaning of experiences in the future. The meaning-making was analyzed in the interaction between human agent and society or culture in a bottom-up manner. Ethical Considerations and Reflection on My Role in the Field I explained to the RMs members that I would be involved in the meetings as an advisor and a researcher and notified them of the study’s objectives and privacy policy, which intended to preserve the collected data carefully and use pseudonyms for all subjects in all publications. Even if all members expressed agreement, nodding, or inclining the head, which means agreement in the Japanese cultural context, it does not necessarily imply their full agreement. They might be indifferent to my research, or they might not express disagreement to avoid breaking the harmonious atmosphere in the meetings. I tried to be sensible to these issues during the following RMs. The Yao disability section and key members of the RMs checked a draft of this chapter and consented to the using the real name of the municipality “Yao” in the publication. I did not just play the role of an advisor with academic knowledge on disability research requested by the Yao City officials, but also that of a person with mobility impairment. Participating in the RMs, first, I promoted and organized opinion exchanges among members and emphasized the members’ power as lay people. Second, I asked all the members to respect the disabilities and opinions of others since there were people with numerous types of disabilities. Due to this diversity, I asked the members to understand that not all discussions would be formulated into disability policies on everyone’s agreement. The members seemed to accept these suggestions during discussions. For example, those with mobility or visual disabilities listened carefully to the remarks of individuals with hearing loss, mental disorders, or intellectual disabilities and, sometimes, spoke particularly slowly for the latter. Similarly, members paid considerable attention to sign language translators.

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Overall, I believe that I was considered a key member of the RMs. The meetings were often held according to my convenience. They regarded me as an academic professional because I often referred to my professional experience in academic societies, universities, or local governments. They referred to me using sensei, which is an honorific title in Japan. At times, members showed solidarity with me as a person with a disability. The Yao City officials anticipated that I would be welcomed by the members due to my physical impairments. However, because they referred to me with honor, my academic position might prevent them from expressing disagreement or objection towards my remarks. Some members regarded me as an associate of the Yao City government, whereas others regarded me as someone unfamiliar with the city’s local affairs. At the time of participating in RMs, I lived in a city that is approximately 30 km away from Yao City. RESULTS I present the RMs process in three phases distributed across time, see Table 5.2. First, the phase of initiatives from key members; second, the development of activities outside the meetings and members’ sense of burden and downsizing activities; and third, results and conclusions (valid for the last year of the effective period of the third-term action Table 5.2. Development of RMs From FY 2008 to FY 2012 Year

Main Agenda

Initiatives of key members 2008

Submitting request letters for improvement of accessibility to bus and railway operators

Development of activities outside the meetings, members’ sense of burden and downsizing activities 2009

Organizing classes on Asian cuisine and drafting digests of the monthly city booklet

2010

Issuance of brochures for promoting public awareness on PWDs

2011

Discussion on supporting PWDs in case of disasters and members’ participation in an evacuation drill

Results and conclusions 2012

Summaries, reflections, and conclusions pertaining to meeting development Opinion exchange regarding the upcoming fourth-term action plan

Note: The number of meetings per fiscal year is five. RMs: residents’ meetings; FYs: fiscal years; PWDs: people with disabilities.

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plan for disability policy), which are based on the agenda and perspectives of key RM members. Initiatives of the Yao City Officials and Key Members: FY 2008 The RMs members were actively involved in managing the meetings. Welfare-related activities began based on the discussions conducted at the meetings during this phase. Key members chaired each session and the proceedings were released on the Yao City website. Mr. A and Ms. B led the meetings from the previous to the current term. Mr. A was a wheelchairbound, middle-aged man with mobility disability. He had been discussing accessibility with local governments and train and bus operators as he was actively involved in several disability organizations for wheelchair provisions outside the RMs. Ms. B was also middle-aged with visual disability and was interested in disability-related activities outside the RMs before they were launched. She was active in the discussions, and sometimes disagreed with my observations (Tagaki, 2017). Ms. B often urged the members to understand that the meeting was not an opportunity for one member to present particular demands to the Yao government. It seemed that she wanted to prevent the meetings from developing into negotiations between officials and disability activists. The agenda was accessibility to public service buildings and usability of public transportation. Members walked around a designated area to observe a real-world scenario. Illegally parked bicycles at the sidewalks to the railway station entrance were found to hinder the movements of elderly people or babies’ buggies. Although these problems were often observed all over Japan, and considered difficult to be completely solved, campaigning for the issues is popular as a welfare-related activity. A member with visual disability, who actively joined activities for blind people outside the RMs in the city, remarked that blind pedestrians find it difficult to recognize rugged tiles. I suggested the following: MT: We should indicate that the current issues might be relevant to many residents, such as the elderly and parents who carry their children in buggies, rather than PWDs alone. It might be more persuasive and effective on gaining more residents’ attention. (Remark 1, FY 2008, third meeting)

Mr. A, as a representative of the members, submitted a proposal to the Yao City section for public transportation and bus or railway operators. The proposal suggested the establishment of a fence on each platform

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and an elevator at each station, benefitting all residents. Falling from platforms; including accidents and reported suicides, occur frequently in Japan. Accessibility is restricted at stations without elevators, partly because stations with small numbers of passengers are not required to have this equipment. The gap between the platform and the train entrance could be an obstacle for many passengers. They added that bus or railway staff should invite persons with disabilities to teach them about disability issues. The reason for such a request was that in addition to professional knowledge, the experiences hold by PWDs are unique, and their perspectives crucial to understand the daily challenges PWDs experience. Development of Activities Outside the Meetings, Members’ Sense of Burden and Downsizing Activities: FYs 2009 to 2011 Fiscal years 2009 and 2010: Outside and inside the meetings, both Mr. A and Ms. B expressed that they felt overburdened with tasks, since they were actively involved in the management of meetings and in welfarerelated enterprises. They organized small meetings once or twice a month. It was unpaid work unlike their ordinary job or housekeeping duties. I suggested that organizing an annual symposium would decrease their duties and they accepted it. Some of the officials even stated that they would attempt to understand the PWDs’ experiences as individuals and not as a local government staff. The FY2009 and 2010 meeting agenda included organizing classes on ethnic cuisines with ethnic minority groups in Yao City and issuing digest versions of Yao official monthly letters. The members considered foreign residents, like people with disabilities, to be a social minority too.3 They found that the currently available monthly letters were difficult to understand for foreign residents, the elderly, and PWDs, since the articles were filled with technical terms or administrative and official sentences. The solution they considered was collecting important articles, such as those related to welfare and medical educational services, by reading the original letters and summarizing them in simple language. However, it was decided that only the classes would be organized, because the members realized that digesting would require too great an effort. Fiscal year 2011: During this period, the massive earthquake and tsunami caused huge damage in eastern Japan (Great East Japan Earthquake). A disability service worker, who attended our RMs due to personal interest, became a leader of the yearly meetings. He became the only non-disabled leader in the history of the RMs. Mr. A and Ms. B, who had stepped down from the position as key members, suggested discussing the

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establishment of a disaster support system. Although Yao City is approximately 600 km away from the area affected by the tsunami, the members seemed to consider the threat of an earthquake. Many great earthquakes, heavy rains, and flooding had occurred nationwide. In particular, Yao residents had strong memory of the Great Hanshin Awaji earthquake in 1997, which happened 40 km far from Yao City, killing approximately 6,000 people. The Japanese are afraid of the expected Nankai Trough earthquake, expected to kill up to 300,000 in Japan, including in the Osaka area. The members learned about the current disaster-related policy from the officials of the Yao disaster prevention section. Some members joined the evacuation drill for ordinary people, rather than for PWDs alone. Many participants voiced problems related to accessibility. For example, Mr. A pointed out that the general drill should consider the air-conditioning facilities and the accessibility of people using wheelchairs to evacuation facilities. Mr. A: People who have malfunction of control of body-temperature, like me, will not be able to stay in evacuation facilities (without air-conditioning). “Heat” is absorbed into the body in summer, and “heat” is rapidly getting out of the body in the winter. Besides, in case of an earthquake, moving to the evacuation center would be very difficult on damaged streets with many obstacles.

On the contrary, Ms. B said that “participation in a general drill is important. We should not comment on the problems of the drill alone; otherwise, staffs of the drill might be too sensitive to reply to our remarks.” I opined that we should provide a priority list for evacuations to a specific local government: MT: (As a member pointed out,) we have to create a priority list based on some criterion, such as fatality. At a certain city, city officials found that not enough people support those who need assistance in disasters. (Remark 2, FY 2011, fourth meeting)

Ms. B added the importance of the relationship with the neighborhoods. Ms. B: First of all, we should have a close relationship with the neighborhood in our daily lives. This is one thing we can do by ourselves, not the local officials’ job. Anyway, we have to be active in this issue.

At the final meeting of FY 2011, we discussed the direction of the meetings for the next fiscal year. Most of the members commented that they had had good opportunities to learn about the diverse statuses of PWDs

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by attending the meetings and wanted to continue. However, they felt that it would be difficult to take the initiative of leading the meetings. A member mentioned that because there are so many discussion themes, such as disaster prevention, that there should be a venue where we can exchange diverse opinions on each disability. The same member added that younger PWDs should attend the meetings as this will change the atmosphere of the meeting. Other members commented that “the current meeting is valuable because many PWDs are able to freely discuss their thoughts, even though we need other opportunities to express our experience besides the meetings.” Ms. B highlighted the importance of leadership as follows: Ms. B: I have been a key member and therefore I felt the burden of work. We need individuals who take initiatives in the meeting, although I understand the importance of the meetings. If the current member did not take leading position, the meeting would not continue. Naturally, launching a new similar meeting should be an option.

I remarked that: MT: It will be our leader’s burden to decide whether we should continue the meeting after the current fiscal year. Leader: I am not a person with disability, and I do not think that I can continue to lead the meetings much longer to formulate disability policy (Remark 3, FY 2011, fifth meeting)

During FYs 2009 and 2011, some members obtained a Yao official grant promoting community-based welfare to issue a brochure to attract the public’s attention to disability issues. Results and Conclusions: FY 2012 In the 2012 meetings, we agreed to maintain the RMs as a venue of opinion exchange irrespective of the interests of disability organizations. We focused on the discussion of the annual symposium, which was similar to my earlier suggestion for decreasing the burdens of key members, as follows: MT: I deeply value the RMs as a venue where we are able to discuss diverse issues regardless of the differences in our disabilities.… It might be a good idea to focus on the preparation of an annual symposium alone.… (We should decrease our duties related to RM activities and our burdens).

92  M. TAGAKI Officials: (Supporting the members “idea”), I would like the members to continue with annual symposiums next year (Remark 4, FY 2012, fifth meeting)

Relationship Between RMs and the Yao Council Every year, Mr. A, Ms. B, and I reported the development of RMs to the Yao council. I emphasized the value of intense discussions apart from the differences between members in terms of their disabilities and more control of the meetings. Also, I emphasized that these accomplishments will be ideal models for collaboration between residents and municipal policymakers outside the disability section. In FY 2011, we added that we might change the RMs’ agenda to decrease the burden experienced by key members in turning members’ discussions into specific activities. The Yao Council’s members praised the RMs’ accomplishments. However, they stated that the RMs should discuss only the degree to which the action plan was accomplished in the conference room and nothing like concrete activities outside the meeting. Mr. A, Ms. B, and I agreed that they did not seem to understand how to manage the RMs or acknowledge the difficulty in decreasing the burdens of key members. Ms. B said: “I was upset with the discussion.” DISCUSSION Accomplishment of Task Goals We concluded that the RMs accomplished their task goals, that is, submission of a proposal for the improvement of public transportation, holding ethnic cooking classes, participation in the general evacuation drill, and issuance of brochures for disability awareness, although it did not issue the digest version of Yao’s monthly letters. Accomplishment of the Process Goal: Differences in the Degrees of Members’ Involvement We concluded that the RMs partially accomplished its process goal. We observed that the members shared their disability-related experiences with each other regardless of the differences in their disabilities or the organizations that they belonged to. I did not observe a hierarchy of disabilities (or impairments) (Reeve, 2004) in social positions, which means that other

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PWDs consider an individual with a particular disability as a person sustaining a “real” disability. People with physical disabilities seemed to pay equal attention to those who had difficulty speaking due to intellectual or mental disabilities. Some of the members were more active in managing the meetings. By setting agendas and issuing meeting proceedings, they could promote their sense of belonging to the RMs. In addition, the accomplishment of maintaining friendly relationships is attributed to their avoidance of focusing on disability type classification while talking about their issues. Nevertheless, the discussion rule that was emphasized by key members, including myself, might prevent them from actively discussing the differences in their social position. Notably, some of the officials stated their personal willingness to understand the issues of PWDs. Takahashi (2008) indicated that emotional sympathy is often emphasized to promote the collaboration between residents and local governments in Japan. In fact, the officials do not have enough opportunities to understand disability issues, because they have to transfer from one section to another every four to five years in Japan. However, their statements might contribute to a good atmosphere that allows the members to express their experiences. Finally, the members realized that management efforts were concentrated on the key members, since the other members were not willing to perform such work and no successor emerged during the meetings. Hence, they decided to decrease their activities. Accomplishment of the Relationship Goal It is remarkable that the RMs accomplished the relationship goal in the current term whereas the RMs in the previous term had failed (Tagaki, 2017). The relationship is argued to be more strongly connected to the task goal, because the members’ involvement might be an everyday resistance that appeals to their social position to the wider community. While Awad et al. (2017) presented graffiti as a symbol and mean for resistance, the current member might intend to show involvement in disability-related activities as such. The members might recognize that they are working in multiple contexts and with multiple actors, such as the Yao disability section, the Yao Council, different welfare organizations, PWDs outside the meetings, and residents without disabilities. Some key persons such as Mr. A and Ms. B found that they were situated in the middle of these different contexts, among several actors. Ms. B asked the members to avoid raising unreason-

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able demands since she understood the policy-making process restrictions of the local government. Among the members’ activities particularly submitting a proposal, the issuance of brochure for disability awareness and attending the evacuation drill promoted discussing their diverse experiences. These activities consist of diverse tasks, involve the members and they are not easily completed. Currently, natural disasters are expected to occur frequently in the country. Therefore, they selected this discussion theme. However, dealing with such uncertainty results in or generates new and diverse meanings for the future (Weick et al., 2005; Tateo, 2017). Regarding disaster issues, Watanabe (2000) remarked that a “town-watch for prevention of disaster damage” needed participants with various backgrounds and that it generated diverse discussions. This was so even though the aim of this activity was ambiguous, compared to those of a disaster drill, like learning how to use a fire extinguisher. She indicated that an ambiguous activity could increase the diverse meanings generated. That members collaborated outside the meetings placed them in a more uncertain position than participating in the RMs only. As mentioned above (Tateo, 2017; Weick et al., 2005), it enhanced noticing their multiple social positions, based on aspects such as public transportation, obtaining information required for daily life and obtaining assistance in disaster. Ms. B’s remark on the disaster drill indicated that PWDs are not special individuals but one group of people who require assistance in the case of disasters, similar to the elderly or infants. This indicates a small resistance (Chaudhary et al., 2017) or an appeal of being a member of the same community as people without disabilities. It could be argued that the re-valued disability policy is a part of the meaning-making process (Tateo, 2017; Weick et al., 2005). The members found that collaboration in activities outside the meetings met common needs among residents with diverse backgrounds. As it made them overlook the discussions on disability-centered issues and activities in the RMs, they valued the process goal of the RMs for disability policy again. They came up with the proposal that a person with disability should be invited as an instructor to ensure barrier-free evacuation training. Finally, the members decided to focus on preparing for the annual symposium from FY 2013 onward. Tagaki (2017) pointed out that the RMs’ aim and activities were assumed to be extensive, even though it was launched by a local government. This indicates that the meeting resembles a self-help group. It also reflects the disability activity norm that PWDs should lead activities. Hori (1994) mentioned that the philosophy of normalization requires our society to promote both disability-related issues and common needs, regardless of their relative importance.

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RM as a Venue for the Development of Disability Identity The RMs in the 2008–2011 term functioned as an environment where members could establish their disability identities (Gill, 1997), similar to the previous term (Tagaki, 2017). The relationship goal’s contribution to this is the remarkable aspect of the last term. Networking with groups outside the RMs created an opportunity for the members to embrace a common experience of disability and develop a sense of belonging and solidarity to the disability community, irrespective of their individual differences. The members developed their disability identity by showing their presence to people outside the RMs (e.g., attending disaster drills). Their development of a disability identity is a kind of everyday resistance (Chaudhary et al., 2017). Disability identity can be more empowering than a general social identity since the former values both community and personal aspects. Forber-Pratt and Zape (2017) and Forber-Pratt (2018) mentioned that the key elements of a disability identity are relationships with other PWDs and assisting them by, for example, being a role model or publicly speaking of disability issues. They stated that the latter is important since it indicates the generation of a social perspective on the disabled community. Moreover, disability identity was developed through narratives in RMs (Dunn, 2015) and the diversity of disability identity is admirable. Tateo (2018) remarked that narrative approach to “health” matter has a risk of adhering to a peculiar normative narrative and dismissing the alternative. Although disability identity was based on common needs that the members attempted to find, there are valuable narratives specific to a certain type of disability. The discussion of disability policy encouraged members to find relationships between their personal experiences and the local disability policy, since the exchange of such experiences could lead to alternative dialogues on disability issues. The disability identity developed at the RMs involves more political issues than a rehabilitation hospital or school where PWDs develop strong relationships with those who sustain different disabilities (Darling, 2013). Therefore, the discussion theme enables members to find both common and specific interests based on their own disability, and not just the disability status. Researcher’s Role: Promotion of the Relationship Goal In the current term, my comments at the meetings encouraged the members to achieve the relationship goal (e.g., Remark 1), rather than the process goal. This was so, even though I stressed the discussion rule and importance of layperson knowledge in this term, as I did in the previous term. I referred to sections and organizations outside the meeting (Remark

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2) and even other local governments. My suggestions on collaborating with these entities enabled other members to identify themselves within diverse social contexts, rather than merely carrying out disability-related projects. My remarks were based on being both an insider and an outsider to RMs. I was neither a Yao resident nor a Yao government official, and therefore I was not most familiar with the region’s issues. However, I became involved in the meeting for a very long period. I also participated in finding meanings for disability policy that were not recognized by the residents or officials. CONCLUSIONS I have argued that the accomplished goals were developed as follows: task and process goals were achieved in the previous term; and task, process, and relationship goals in the last term. The three goals are clearly interrelated through narratives (see Figure 5.1). The task goal was based on the process and relationship goals, and the members were oriented towards achieving them. The accomplishment of one goal does not signify the abandonment of the goal, because by their identification or redefinition it was argued to open up to new issues. It is not a negative aspect of the RMs, provided that the RM is a venue for meaning making. Selecting unsolvable and uncertain issues as a discussion theme leads to their active exchange of each experience (Tateo, 2017). Besides disaster drill and the public awareness of disability issues in the last term, the illegally parked bicycles are a suitable theme. Even though some municipal governments regulate them around transit facilities, the problem persists in other areas (Chosokabe et al., 2015). For example, an RM member could insist that there should be no bicycles parked in an area close to public facilities or a shopping complex. One might argue that the members attempted to create thematic consistency between the last term and the previous one. For example, supporting PWDs in the case of the disaster and public awareness on PWDs were discussed in the previous term too (Tagaki, 2017). Indeed, sense-making bridges past, present, and future experiences (Valsiner, 2018b; Weick et al., 2005). One could argue that both the process and relationship goals are mutually strengthened and form the basis for the task goal. The members actively managed the meetings and established solidarity through their participation in the meetings and other activities. However, networking with groups outside the meetings enabled the members to recognize that disabilitycentered activities and presence of PWDs might be overlooked in such meetings. A member might attempt to place disability issues at the center

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Figure 5.1.  Triangle showing the three goals of the disability identity. If the residents’ meeting (RM) orients toward the relationship goal to obtain the task goal (observe two arrows), the reminder of the process goal widens. This implies that focusing on the relationship goal consequently causes the RM to be distant from the process goal. Hence, the RM persuades the process goal again.

of the meeting discourse as more activities outside the meeting develop. Thus, both goals are mere means of accomplishing the task goal. They contributed to the creation of an identity for individuals with disabilities by collaborating with groups outside the meetings. Hence, I suggested that the RMs is an effective means of enacting the disability policy (Remark 4). Further, the RMs have certain limitations. The discussions and the disability identity focus do not always satisfy the members who intend to obtain specific social resources. The discussion rule that we reiterated might prevent the members from talking about their specific demands. RMs are continuing in 2019 and some projects are going to be implemented in conjunction with citizen groups in Yao City. Therefore, we the development of the RMs after 2013 should be analyzed. A focus-group interview with key persons will be a suitable method to gain further understanding of the members’ commitment to the meetings, as well as their meaning making. PERMISSIONS This article is a revised version of the article titled “A follow-up study of ideal management practices of a residents’ meeting for the drafting of policies for people with disabilities,” which was published in The Japanese

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Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (2012, Vol. 56, No. 2, pp. 97–11. doi.org/10.2130/jjesp.1406). The permission to publish this version was acquired from the Editorial Board of The Japanese Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. NOTES 1. This study employs the disability terminology used by the Japanese government. 2. The current study data might be outdated since RMs continue to be conducted as of January 1, 2019. However, strictly speaking, the third-term action plan comprises the beginning and second periods (FYs 2008–2012 and 2013–2015), and the agenda and management style became different after the first period. Hence, I believe that focusing on the first period is reasonable. 3. Approximately, the number of foreign residents is 6,553 or 2.43 percent of the total Yao population in 2013. This fourth biggest foreign population in the Osaka prefecture (Yao City, 2014).

REFERENCES Awad, S. H., Wagoner, B., & Glaveanu, V. (2017). The street art of resistance. In N. Chaudhary, P. Hviid, G. Marsico, & J. Villadsen (Eds.), Resistance in everyday life (pp. 161–180). Springer. Bruner, J. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Harvard University Press. Cabinet Office of the Government of Japan. (2007). Public survey on people with disabilities. Cabinet Office Japan. http://www8.cao.go.jp/survey/h18/h18shougai/ [in Japanese]. Cabinet Office of the Government of Japan. (2012). Annual report on government measures for persons with disabilities. Cabinet Office Japan. https://www8.cao. go.jp/shougai/whitepaper/h24hakusho/zenbun/index.html Cabinet Office of the Government of Japan. (2014). A survey on an action plan for disability policy in municipal government. Cabinet Office Japan. http://www8.cao. go.jp/shougai/suishin/chihoutop.html [in Japanese]. Cabinet Office of the Government of Japan. (2017). A public survey on persons with disabilities. Cabinet Office Japan. http://survey.gov-online.go.jp/h24/h24shougai/index.html [in Japanese]. Cabinet Office of the Government of Japan. (2018). Annual report on government measures for persons with disabilities. Cabinet Office Japan. https://www8.cao. go.jp/shougai/whitepaper/h30hakusho/zenbun/index-pdf.html [in Japanese]. Chaudhary, N., Hviid, P., Marsico, G., & Villadsen, J. (2017). Resistance in everyday life. Springer

Making Meaning of Disability   99 Chosokabe, M., Takeyoshi, H., & Sakakibara, H. (2015). Temporal change of social context based on community: In the case of the bicycle riding issue in Japan. Infrastructure Planning and Management, 71, 69–80 [in Japanese]. Darling, R. B. (2013). Disability and identity: Negotiating self in a changing society. Lynne Rienner. Dunn, D. S. (2015). The social psychology of disability. Oxford University Press. Forber-Pratt, A. J. (2018). (Re)defining disability culture: Perspectives from the Americans with Disabilities Act generation. Culture & Psychology, 25(2), 241–256. Forber-Pratt, A. J., & Zape, M. P. (2017). Disability identity development model: Voices from the ADA-generation. Disability and Health Journal, 10, 350–355. Gill, C. (1997). Four types of integration in disability identity development. Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation, 9, 39–46. Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. Aldine. Hanny, C., & O’Connor, K. (2013). A dialogical approach to conceptualizing resident participation in community organizing. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 20, 338–357. Hayashi, R., & Okuhira, M. (2001). The disability rights movement in Japan: Past, present and future. Disability & Society, 16, 855–869. Hori, M. (1994). Paradigm change of special education: A theory for integration. TshugeShobo. [in Japanese]. Iwakuma, M. (2003). Being disabled in modern Japan: A minority perspective. In E. Kramer (Ed.), The emerging monoculture: Assimilation and the “model minority” (pp. 124–138). Praeger. Kayama, D. (2010). An analysis of the genealogy of community organization theories. The Bulletin of the Department of Sociology, Toyo University, 47, 81–96. [in Japanese] Kawakita, J. (1967). Abduction. Chuou-kouron. [in Japanese]. Lewin, K. (1948). Resolving social conflicts: Selected papers on group dynamics. Harper. Nagata, M. (2013). Action research in community and organization. In Y. Yamada, T. Asao, T. Sato, K. Akita, M. Nochi, & K. Yamori (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative psychology (pp. 363–380). Shinyo-sha. [in Japanese]. Nochi, M. (2013). Analysis of narrative text. In Y. Yamada, T. Asao, T. Sato, K. Akita, M. Nochi, & K. Yamori (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative psychology (pp. 324–344). Shinyo-sha. [in Japanese]. Noro, C. (2012). Work changes of public health nursing arising from administration transition during merger of municipal governments. Japanese Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 52, 125–136. [in Japanese]. Oliver, M. (1997). Emancipatory research: Realistic goal or impossible dream? In C. Barnes & G. Mercer (Eds.), Doing disability research (pp. 15–31). The Disability Press. Reeve, D. (2004). Psycho-emotional dimensions of disability and the social model. In C. Barnes & G. Mercer (Eds.), Implementing the social model of disability: Theory and research (pp. 83–100). The Disability Press. Ross, M. G. (1955). Community organization: Theory and principles. Harper and Brothers.

100  M. TAGAKI Scupin, R. (1997). The KJ method: A technique for analyzing data derived from Japanese ethnology. Human Organization, 56, 233–237. Seekins, T., & White, G. W. (2013). Participatory action research designs in applied disability and rehabilitation science: Protecting against threats to social validity. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, 94, S20–S29. Tagaki, M. (2016). Research development from acceptance to the meaning of acquired disability in people with impaired mobility in Japan. Japanese Psychological Research, 58, 89–105. Tagaki, M. (2017). Action research on drafting municipal policies for people with disabilities in Japan. Sage Open. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244017723050 Tao, M. (2007). Self-help society: Governance for super aging society. Yuhikaku. [in Japanese] Takahashi, N. (2008). The regulating factors of intention and experience with coproduction related to local government administration. Japanese Journal of Psychology, 79, 415–422. [in Japanese] Tateo, L. (2017). Seeing imagination as resistance and resistance as imagination. In N. Chaudhary, P. Hviid, G. Marsico, & J. Villadsen (Eds.), Resistance in everyday life (pp. 233–245). Springer. Tateo, L. (2018). The Enchantment of stories. In R. D. L. Picione, J. Nedergaard, M. F. Freda, & S. Salvatore (Eds.), Idiographic approach to health (pp. 255–561). Information Age Publishing. Valsiner, J. (2007). Culture in minds and societies: Foundations of cultural psychology. SAGE. Valsiner, J. (2018a, February). Beyond methods to open-systemic Methodology in contemporary cultural psychologies. Paper presented at the sixth Niels Bohr lectures on cultural psychology, Aalborg, Denmark. Valsiner, J. (2018b, February). Cultural psychologies and new general psychology: What has been learned in the past five years? Paper presented at the sixth Niels Bohr lectures on cultural psychology, Aalborg, Denmark. Weick, K. E. (1995). Sensemaking in organizations. SAGE. Weick, K. E., Sutcliffe, K. M., & Obstfeld, D. (2005). Organizing and the process of sensemaking. Organization Science, 16(4), 409–421. Watanabe, T. (2000). Trials in communities five years after the Great HanshinAwaji Earthquake: Group dynamics of preventing disaster WITHOUT saying disaster prevention. The Japanese Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 39, 188–196. [in Japanese]. https://doi.org/10.2130/jjesp.39.188 Wright, B. A. (1983). Physical disability: A psychosocial approach. Harper & Row. Yamori, K. (2008). Narrative mode of thought in disaster damage reduction: A crossroad for narrative and gaming approaches. In T. Sugiman, K. Gergen, W. Wagner, & Y. Yamada (Eds.), Meaning in action: Construction, narratives, and representations (pp. 251–252). Springer. Yao City. (2003). Second-term Yao action plan for disability policy. Yao City Government. [in Japanese]. Yao City. (2008). Third-term Yao action plan for disability policy. Yao City Government. [in Japanese].

Making Meaning of Disability   101 Yao City. (2014). Yao action plan for multicultural coexistence. Yao City Government. [in Japanese]. Yao City. (2018). Yao City. Yao City Government. http://www.city.yao.osaka.jp/ [in Japanese].

CHAPTER 6

MANEUVERING AROUND CONFLICTS BETWEEN INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT NGOs AND LOCAL COMMUNITIES TOWARD POVERTY ALLEVIATION IN GHANA Seth Amofah

INTRODUCTION In this chapter I explore the tensions that exist between international development organizations and the communities in which they operate. As organizations work across borders and deal with different communities and people with different backgrounds, there is a greater tendency for ambivalence. Ambivalence can be strengthened by untranslatability (Lomas, 2017), given the different cultural backgrounds of the actors, and can both lead to creative processes and to frictions. By focalizing on Northern

Cultural Psychology in Communities: Tensions and Transformations, pp. 103–121 Copyright © 2020 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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Ghana, the chapter looks into how the operations of international nongovernment organizations (NGOs) in developing countries might lead to ambivalence within the receiving communities, despite NGOs’ purported positive intentions. Reports on tension and doubts in NGO-beneficiary community relations are not a new research subject in anthropology and sociology, the same field in which the study I will discuss in this chapter was originally conducted. Lewis (2016) and Hilhorst (2003), for instance, have questioned whether NGOs actually do something good in the places in which they operate. On the other hand, Fassin (2012) and Fountain (2011) insist that not only do NGOs work to improve the socioeconomic conditions within communities, but that they advocate for the community members as well. Meanwhile, in this chapter we can see that actual tension exists between NGOs and the beneficiary communities. Also, it considers the cultural psychological theorizing on ambivalence and semiotics in framing, interpreting, and perhaps even overcoming such tension. Most research on NGOs engaged in poverty reduction concentrate on development issues and the successes or failures of such projects. The few studies on NGOs and culture are usually focused on the role of NGOs in cross-cultural conflict management in civil war areas (Avruch, 1998; OseiHwedie & Galvin, 2008). Even though a number of studies have reported confrontations between NGO workers and the communities they work in (Namara, 2010; Udu, 2014), less work has focused on analyzing the conflicts as such, rather than using cultural difference as a general explanation for them. The study that I carried out explored the conflicts that arise between NGOs and communities, how these conflicts are cultural and how participants maneuver their ways through them in order to achieve the project objectives. I aimed not only to explore existing conflicts between NGOs and beneficiary communities but also to propose possible means of overcoming them. This study was justified by its potential contribution to the academic line of work on cross-cultural orientations in international development corporations. But furthermore, it could contribute to the meaning making approaches for NGOs working within foreign communities and could serve as a preparatory guide for NGO workers entering into culturally new environments. Discussing this study in the following, it seems that there are cultural differences between international development NGO’s and the local communities they work with that sometimes degenerate into tension and conflicts. The differences referred to in this chapter concern how both parties receive, interpret, understand, and relay each other’s symbols, signs, and way of life. In this vein, I discuss how orientation for NGO workers and beneficiary communities could enhance poverty alleviation projects rather than creating indelible negative impression of each other.

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This chapter draws on Abbey’s (2012) assertion that the future could be started and stopped by ambivalence. Though Abbey discusses the concept from a psychological perspective, the principles are noticeable in social interactions as well. Poverty alleviation is a continuous fight, which is hoped to be won in the nearest future. Therefore, a study like this intends to identify means to reduce the ambivalence that could halt it. In this sense, this chapter is concerned with ambivalence occurring between communities in the process of interacting with one another for future benefit. My case study of an Estonian NGO named MTÜ Mondo’s (NGO Mondo or Mondo) operations in Ghana used qualitative empirical methods to identify and discuss the various forms of misunderstandings, differences, and tensions that have ensued in the operations. The study centers on the differences, as I mentioned them above, between the staff and volunteers of Mondo who visit and stay in rural areas of Northern Ghana. Further examination of my results depicts how the various flashpoints in the poverty reduction project come about and how they could be resolved for a better outcome. The chapter has been organized into four main sections. After this introductory section, the next part discusses the theories and literature used for the case study. This includes a general overview of NGO operations, elements of cultural conflicts and diversities. The methodology section then follows with the study’s approaches. Results, discussion, and conclusion end the chapter. Throughout the chapter, I try to engage with the question of the relevance of cultural psychology in theorizing, investigating and possibly resolving the conflicts that are commonly called “cultural.” CONFLICTS AND AMBIVALENCES IN NGO-BENEFICIARY RELATIONSHIPS: STATE OF THE ART NGOs from the global north have been working in the global south for many years. This means that problematic cross-cultural interactions have been indicated for decades in this sphere (Jackson & Claeye, 2011). The topic has gained relevance in discourses related to NGO-beneficiary community relations after Lewis (2017) drew attention to it. The literature review I carried out concentrates mainly on issues that could be described as cultural or are seen to operate culturally in NGO and community relations. The NGO Boom and Arising Conflicts International development agencies have been working in different parts of the world over many decades (Godrej, 2014). Over this period of

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time, their contributions have been recognized as useful and profitable, especially to developing nations. According to Shah (2005), for example, NGOs have been identified to meet development backlogs as well as to promote social welfare in many parts of the world, especially in developing countries. Due to increasing efforts to make the world reduce problems such as poverty, hunger, illiteracy, and the gender gap, these organizations have become more active. It is not surprising that Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number 17 is emphatic on “Development Cooperation” (United Nations [UN], 2017). The goal is to encourage countries and organizations that have more to join hands with those who need more so that ultimate goals could be achieved by the end of 2030. Over thirty percent of the world’s poorest people live in Sub-Saharan Africa (Castañeda et al., 2016; Shah, 2014; United Nations Development Programme, 2010). This has resulted in many hands getting involved in reducing the prevalence of poverty on the continent. Sainath (1996) has written about how development organizations have provided alternative approaches in health care, poverty eradication, employment, and improving children’s conditions in child labor. These projects are usually led by international NGOs. Godrej (2014) describes the evolution of NGOs from their inception in 1945 after the formation of the United Nations and how they have become more than one 1,500 times the preferred channel for developed countries to developing countries (see also Lewis, 2017). This indicates how powerful many NGOs have become in the last three to four decades. In Africa, the past few decades have seen a growing number of NGOs drawing inspiration from funding opportunities and technical support provided by International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and UN institutions to extend their operations and cover the development agenda of many low and middle-income countries. The prominence of NGOs has been on the rise since the 1980s (Nikoi, 2008) and they have since predominantly contributed in the socioeconomic development of various counties. Brass (2012) estimates an increase in the number of NGOs in Kenya from 125 in 1974, to more than 4,200 in 2006. In the case of Ghana, the number is estimated to be around 1500 (Bob-Miller, 2005). Khanom (2011) agrees with Sainath (1996) that the numbers have risen because public-private partnerships involving NGOs have been an effective approach to reducing poverty. That is, governments alone have not been enough to overcome the overwhelming challenges their developing countries face. The argument has been that participating private organizations are more likely to introduce innovative ways of solving or reducing the challenges of poverty. These organizations have their own interests, mostly related to infrastructural and physical development, education, health care, economic empowerment, governance, and justice (Swanepoel & de

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Beer, 2006). NGOs are not supposed to be motivated by profit. Rather, they should be driven to supplement or to take care of the issues that governments are not able to solve. Moreover, NGOs can be important contributors to solutions to the problem of poverty faced by developing countries. There is a sense of increasing trust awarded to NGOs by donors, beneficiary countries and the communities where they operate. This has also made them the preferred partners in planning, implementing, and executing poverty reduction programs (Anheier & Salamon, 2006; Brown, 2008; Godrej, 2014; Manor, 2004). This accelerated increase in volume and quantity comes with its own issues. At the operational level there have been reports of friction between organizations and communities. Some researchers placed the source of these frictions at the NGOs’ doorstep (see Shah 2005; Tomazos & Butler, 2010). Bonzi (2006), on the other hand, believes that beneficiary communities also contribute to these frictions. Another group of researchers has attributed the source of tensions to NGOs’ funding sources and the tendency of the funded organizations to push the funder’s agenda in the beneficiary community (see Godrej, 2014; Porter, 2003; Shah, 2005). Practices and Confrontations However, the accusations that NGOs do more harm than good in the places where they work are also increasing. Jeater (2011) shares her experience with NGO work in post-independence Zimbabwe. She discusses the difference between “knowing” and “doing” by NGOs and their staff. This means that what NGOs are known to be doing is different from what they might be doing or mean to do. In her case, she attests that when she first started working in Zimbabwe in the 1980s, she was impressed by how all the NGO workers she met emphasized the need to listen to rural women. To her dismay, she quickly realized that “listening” meant “finding out how to present what we want to deliver in ways that make them acceptable to rural women” (Jeater, 2011). These kinds of misunderstandings in operations jeopardize the main motives of NGOs and communities alike. This draws the attention of researchers from the factors impeding development NGOs beyond the institutional level to the individual level to include staff members, volunteers, and individual beneficiaries. Charleston et al. (2017), studying three cases of youth volunteers in the Raleigh projects in Malaysia, concluded that the NGO sector is characterized by its recruiting of volunteers. This comes with heaps of challenges for the NGOs, since after some time, retaining the volunteers turns difficult. They, therefore, continue in a cycle of recruitment which comes at a cost to the bonding with the local stakeholders. The researchers propose training

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and updated training challenges that would make international and local NGO workers meet the cultural dynamism of the communities they work within. The limited cross-cultural training, orientation, and preparation that NGO workers and volunteers receive have been problematic for the achievement of their project objectives. The issue of volunteering and volunteerism in NGO operations is also found in tourism studies where the practice has been given a nickname; “voluntourism” (Schneller & Coburn, 2018; Wearing, 2001). Wearing (2001) defined such activity as an organized way in which people go on a kind of holiday that will also involve assisting in alleviating poverty or providing some social benefit. Even if NGOs recruit these volunteers for their operations such as community development or science research (Wearing, 2004; Tomazos & Butler, 2010), the volunteers often also have their own agenda of touring the country they are visiting. This is one major cause of friction for NGOs that use volunteers on frequent basis for their operations. Challenges may emerge as a result of divided attention to go on tour around the host country and to performing their duties assigned to them by the sending organization at the same time. From the local community’s perspective, in Northern Ghana for instance, some traditional practices, norms and values are upheld as sacrosanct and therefore should not be disrespected, most especially with regards to the authority of opinion leaders. Opinion leaders are like members of a cabinet. They take the most important decisions affecting all community members at the family and community levels, making opinion leaders powerful and situating them high up the social ladder. In Hofstede’s (2011) model, this would be high power distance. Many people claim power and demand respect from others who might not even be considered to be under their authority. Older and elderly men see all young people as their children and claim responsibility for what they do. Therefore, if employees and institutions from countries where there is low power distance work with people in the above described settings of high power distance, there is the tendency that their different levels of power distance could generate tensions, or even degenerate into conflicts. Hofstede’s model is useful for understanding the dynamisms of development cooperation between NGOs and beneficiary communities and how the people involved should understand and relate with one another to reduce possible ambivalence. Maneuvering the NGO-Beneficiary Tensions To work around the challenges between NGOs and beneficiaries, Charleston et al. (2017) propose a model they call the curiosity, passion, adaptability, communication, and empathy (CPACE) framework. This

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model is intended to enhance the competencies for cross-cultural encounters and designed to be useful for both NGOs and local beneficiaries. The CPACE framework thus provides a foundation for enhancement between NGOs and local communities. According to the authors, any program that intends to ensure cross-cultural competence should be more grounded in sender-receiver relationships within development partnerships. At the organizational level, Nelson (2007) has proposed that improved communication between NGOs and other stakeholders like funders and beneficiaries is one of the best ways to reduce conflicts. Nelson finds that there has to be constant contact between all parties in a common and simple language and activities that could be comprehended by all. This ensures the measurable achievement of results in development projects based on agreed benchmarks and timelines. For this to happen, Nelson puts forward three strategic areas of action that need to be implemented by NGOs for their operational staff and partners for NGO-partner relationships. The strategies are evaluating and improving project and industry performance, mobilizing joint resources to solve specific development or operational challenges, and jointly strengthening governance and capacity. These strategies could be applied to deal with tensions that surface in the operations. They are proposed to ensure accountability and transparent mechanisms among the partners. Ambivalence Toward Communities: Cultural Semiotics as a Way Out? Cultural differences can lead to strong resistance to how different people or groups access relevant resources that have cultural sensitivity attached to it (Summers & Jones, 2004). Implementation of poverty reduction programs is culturally sensitive since it will require direct alteration of the way of life of the people who are targeted by these programs. The implementation of an initiative by an NGO may lead to professional stereotypes from the development agency or misunderstanding of the actions of the organization by the receiving community due to the diversities in experiences and backgrounds (Vasquez-Nutall et al., 2006). Professional stereotype, according to these authors, is the negative label some people who are in some kind of occupation receive from other people. In the process of implementing a poverty reduction project, some types of occupations or professions of the beneficiaries might be stereotyped and relegated to make way for another kind of job that fits into the new project. The need for profession or job change for some of the project beneficiaries may be necessary to help increase their economic prospects. Such a situation requires extensive consultation. If it is not well explained to the community

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members why they need to change their professions, it may lead to misunderstanding. Enhancing meaning making within this setting might help in reducing ambivalence. According to Abbey (2012), individuals make multiple meanings from the same event. In this case, where people from different backgrounds are dealing with each other, it is more important to find common meanings to the symbols, signs, and language that transpire between them. Changing Ambivalence Through Competence and Semiotics Ambivalence could be changed over a period of time just as meaning making could change over time (Abbey, 2012). In this sense, though there is a number of misunderstandings between NGOs and local stakeholders within the beneficiary communities, there is a chance that they will understand each other over a period of time if they are able to construct a common meaning of the aim to reduce poverty that brings them together. Semiotics used in this context incorporates signs, communication and meaning which is a negotiable process of collective meaning making (Nöth, 1995). In the quest to contribute to understanding meaning making from and toward communities in a cultural psychological vein, this chapter is crafted from an originally sociological case study. This chapter intends to engage with the cultural psychological concept of ambivalence while looking at the conflicts identified during the sociological study. CASE STUDY METHODOLOGY The qualitative study I will refer to here rests on the constructivist worldview, aiming to establish how everyday practices of development NGOs for poverty alleviation could be theorized. Everyday interactions between development NGOs and beneficiary communities were focused on in conducting the empirical study. The two main communities included in this study were situated in the Nabdam District of Upper East Region in Ghana who are directly connected to the operations of NGO Mondo. NGO Mondo is Estonia’s largest NGO in terms of operational scope and the oldest development organization, established in 2007. It operates in Europe, Middle East, South East Asia, and Africa. In Africa, it works in development cooperation and educational assistance in Ghana, Uganda, and Kenya. This study concentrated on the operations in Ghana, because in 2008 the organization started up its first project here and this is where most of the NGO staff and volunteers have been working over the years. Mondo works with

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widowed women in building sustainable livelihoods through commercial shea butter production and straw basket weaving. Data were collected through face-to-face interviews, conducted with beneficiary community members in Nabdam District from June to July 2018 and staff of NGO Mondo Estonia in September 2018. In all, the study counted with 21 participants: 10 women from the Mondo social enterprise (shea butter extraction and basket weaving), three school directors, three students from the Mondo Education Support Fund, one community leader, one officer from the Development Planning Department of the Nabdam District Assembly and one officer from the District Education Office. Two NGO Mondo staff were also interviewed in their office in Tallinn, Estonia. The selected participants were included in the study because they all had gone through the poverty alleviation activities of NGO Mondo, either as direct or indirect beneficiaries, collaborators, or as NGO’s workers assigned to the Ghana operations. They were considered as reliable and competent sources of data for the study, as it looked into the existing tensions and ways of overcoming them. This case study builds theory from the research participants’ views, interpretations, and understanding, to afford deep exploration of multiple cases through in-depth data gathering (Yin, 1989, 2009). The use of a case study helped in describing the tensions in poverty alleviation projects between NGOs and beneficiary communities. According to Saldaña (2009), data collection and analysis are not independent from each other, therefore, the time between data collection and analysis is blurred. While the data is being gathered, the (preliminary) analysis already happens. All the gathered data were coded based on Charmaz’s (2006) constructivist grounded theory principles. This was to enable the interpretation of the interview data. The interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed. Afterwards, I read them thoroughly for coding purposes. During the analytical process, similar responses were grouped into themes and common themes merged. The codes were intended to identify themes associated with the research through open coding. New themes that came up were subcoded under the main questions and were finally grouped for easy referencing and crossreferencing analysis in relation to the main questions and objectives by using key words to identify themes. Coding processes of open coding, axial coding, and selective coding were used in filtering the data, finding patterns, and categorizing the data into themes. The themes were interpreted using a hermeneutic approach (Newman, 2014), that is, detailed text interpretation without losing its relevance. Reporting on this study is limited by the sensitivity of some of the data and the difficulty to anonymize this information given the number of respondents who participated in the study. There were very strong cultural and operational conflicts reported through the interviews conducted. Due

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to the attention to those issues generated within the communities and the NGO, they became talks of the town. Most people know who might have provided certain data or who these issues were about. Based on the anonymity principle as an ethical requirement, very sensitive data especially about volunteers and community members have been left out of this study though they fall within the scope of the research. That is why this chapter has omitted quotations to protect the identity of all participants as much as possible. CASE STUDY RESULTS The results of the study are discussed in this section, categorized into themes in line with the research objective. The main themes of the results are preparation to go and to host and money matters: signatures versus thumbprints. Preparation to Go and to Host The study sought to find out how the international development organization and beneficiary communities in Ghana prepare for the work that brings them together: poverty reduction initiative implementations. There was a need to find out how people sent to work on projects in the field are or prepared before they arrived in mostly totally new environment for the first time. The awareness of the background of the arriving NGO staff and subsequent preparation to receive them by hosting communities had to be examined in this study. To begin with, NGO Mondo employs different people for their development mission in Ghana. The study revealed that the organization seeks professionals such as teachers, midwives, doctors, and artists as volunteers. Since 2017, the organization has been granted the European Commission’s EU Volunteer funding to recruit volunteers for their projects in most of the countries they operate. In the years before the grant, the NGO was sending volunteers on need base. Volunteers were sent for shorter periods a few times a year when they could raise enough funds for that purpose. Because of this limitation, the volunteers were not living too long in the communities. A number of previous volunteers went ahead to get full time assignments or became part time staff. Thus, they could acquire enough competence in the practices of the NGO and the dynamics of the different development projects undertaken in Ghana. This is a positive sign, since continuous trainings for staff members is expected to increase their understanding of the people they work with within the field (Charleston et al., 2017).

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Since 2010, Mondo has sent many people, both staff and volunteers to northern Ghana. There have been conflicts between the hosting beneficiary communities and the workers of the NGO. Some volunteers interviewed for this study have had confrontations with the local people. For example, NGO workers refused to take advice from local opinion leaders, leading to assault on the volunteers by some people from the community. There were moments where actions or inactions of some NGO volunteers had resulted in incidences theft and personal attacks on them (volunteers) within the host communities. Community members directly related to the development cooperation were deemed to be on the defensive of these volunteers’ actions as protection for their (volunteers) safety and rights. At the same time, other members of the community were critical about the actions of the volunteer. This resulted in an intra-community conflict. There are also conflicts within the NGO sending workers to the field, with their own staff or volunteers. The difference between worktime and leisure has become a contentious issue. Some NGO staff sent on development missions also use part of their assignment time for touring the country. These volunteers become “voluntourist” as suggested by Schneller and Coburn (2017) and adopted by Tomazos and Butler (2010). A respondent mentioned in this study that there is a problem when time is used by volunteers and NGO workers to visit tourist sites while they are required to stay in the villages to work. The NGO does not prevent staff members and volunteers from engaging in tourism but abhors the use of official work time for such a purpose. What is difficult to determine by the NGO, volunteers or staff and receiving communities is when the volunteer is free to leave the community for personal travels around the country. This has generated incidences of tensions over time. There have been instances when community members needed the representative of the NGO to be present for something, but this person would be away from the community. When this continuously happens, after a while the main purpose of the visit becomes affected. Study participants from both sides believe that if NGO workers stay in the communities for longer periods of time, they may be able to overcome some of the problems. They pointed out that when the workers arrive it takes a while for them to overcome the cultural shock and the excitement anticipated through their travels. By the time they integrate into the communities, it is time for them to go. Another person comes and the same cycle repeats. In this view, the a respondent believes that the grant for EU Volunteer project funding, awarded to the organization, will give more room for success in the fight against poverty. It would allow volunteers from all over Europe to apply and work in the beneficiary communities for a period of six months and longer. These volunteers may understand the people and the context better and work along with them after they become

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used to the local structures and systems. Some of the local participants called for orientation and continuous training for all field workers sent by the NGO. By so doing, the workers will be reminded of what their duties are and what is expected of them in the community they are sent to work in. The orientation is also proposed for the local community members who receive and host the NGO workers. Some participant from the community mentioned that such orientation, if possible, should be conducted together with the workers, especially when they arrive new into the community. Some of them were of the view that it will help build good relationship between them, the host and their guest, the NGO workers. Money Matters: Signatures Versus Thumbprints NGO operations involve funds from different sources (Godrej, 2014; Porter, 2003). There is a need to keep accurate records of all expenditures for accounting purposes. These records also serve as evidence of transparency for the NGO operations. NGO Mondo sources funds in different forms from private individuals, the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Development Fund and European Commission. All these funding sources are used for various projects in Ghana by the organization. To account for the use of the funds and to ensure that they are used by the recipient for the purpose for which it was given, different mechanisms are implemented. Some of these include the issuance of payment receipts, collection of signatures and filing progress reports. NGO Mondo expects local beneficiaries, coordinators, and their partner organizations in the operational area in Ghana to follow these accounting procedures. In this study, it became evident that this has been a source of conflict. As the NGO requires the issuance of receipts, signatures and other official documents, the local beneficiaries are not used to providing them. Ghana has a very high informal sector and system (Hart, 1973; De Soto 2000) therefore some things are done differently from what the NGO would expect. Most public transports do not have receipts or tickets: “you pay your money, you join the van or bus to your destination and that’s all. No need to ask for tickets or receipts because there is none for you.” This was a response of one of the participants of the study living in the Nabdam District. In such an instance, if money is used, it becomes difficult to account for it even if there is physical evidence of the activity completed. The NGO management requires that the rules are followed because they would have to accurately report back to their head office in Tallinn, Estonia, about their operations in Ghana, which largely include expenses. Therefore, if by the workings of an “informalized” system in Ghana they cannot meet the legal requirements in Estonia that would be problematic.

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Again, the records were needed for the financiers to prove that the money was spent according to the purpose they gave it for. If there is no proper paper evidence of the spending, then there will be trouble, said one of the research participants. In one instance, a project sponsored by a government organization from Estonia for training basket weavers and shea butter extractors required a sign sheet of all participants who attended. Most of these participants had little or no formal schooling, had not learned to write and hence could not sign. They used the alternative option used by banks in Ghana for those who cannot read nor write, thumb print. When the attendance sheet with the thumb prints was submitted back to Estonia, the sponsors had difficulties to accept them because they looked very different from the way such documents are supposed to be endorsed in their home country. They were expecting a list of names with pen signature next to each. According to Mondo officials, they defended the thumb prints by arguing that it is accepted for official purposes in Ghana if an individual cannot write his or her own signature. The study results demonstrated another contentious issue with the use of official receipts, as local participants in some cases could not provide any formal proof of their spending or receipts. The request by the NGO for strict accounts from the local people executing projects and spending funds, have in the past been understood to be mistrust. Participants in the study mentioned how they had to explain back-and-forth about how they spent some money, but the organization management would not understand that there was no record to prove it even though that task had been successfully completed. To be able to overcome the problems with the absence of official receipts for spending, the NGO agreed with the local beneficiaries, partner organizations, and individuals that they keep blank receipt booklets. And any provider of service who does not have receipts should be demanded to enter it on their receipt booklet and sign or thumbprint to affirm the details. The service provider is then given a copy of the triplicated sheets. From the beneficiaries, in the initial stages, this arrangement was inconvenient since it was new to them and their service providers, but with time they got used to it. Tensions on funding have also come about when the NGO disapproved budgets for projects presented by the beneficiaries. Most of the people within the study area think that the NGO has limitless financial resources and therefore should be able to do anything they request. In the event that the NGO does not agree to such demands, the local people find it difficult to understand the response. In an interview with a Mondo staff-member, she talked about how many people within the project areas come asking for assistance for their personal use each day. She mentioned that, they (the NGO) are not there to solve individual problems so if such requests

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are not channeled through prearranged procedures and within the mission of the organization, they do not consider them. This makes local people think the volunteer or staff is wicked and heartless to their plight. From the data gathered through the interviews, it became clear that there were tensions at various levels. Some of them are at the maturity level and hence exploded into conflicts. Others are silent but have the potential to affect the progress of the projects. DISCUSSION The study sought to identify the causes of conflict between international NGOs and beneficiary communities in Ghana. After gathering and analyzing the data, the findings revealed traces of multiple causes of conflicts. The main causes of the conflicts were identified in the relationship between the NGO workers and community members. This was due to the fact that NGOs employ volunteers on short stay in the project communities and hence the volunteers get limited time for training and orientation. In addition, some volunteers’ personal interest to go sight-seeing within the host country, practically aligning with Schneller and Coburn’s (2018) principles of tourism plans, brought about tension. In this case time could be the common denominator for the first causes of the conflicts. Time, in the sense that the period spent by the NGO staff in the field is relatively short but packed with official and unofficial activities. The official activities are the ones sanctioned by the sending organization and the unofficial are those that the person would want to carry out during the stay. As these two activities compete, it generates conflict within the NGO itself. The limited amount of time also does not allow the staff to learn from the local norms and to be able to adapt. Moreover, the study identified the issue of trust as another cause of ambivalence in the relationship. Throughout the study, both sides of the relationship stressed the importance of trust from the other either directly or it could be inferred. The introduction and adherence to transparency and accountability mechanisms were evident. From the interviews, it was obvious that receipt books and thumb prints for accountability purposes were implemented to maintain smooth relations between the development partners but not entirely because local participants wholeheartedly agreed to it. It is a test and evidence of trust that each party can prove to the other, but that in itself is a ground to think that there is mistrust somewhere. On the other hand, it could be argued that the NGO-beneficiary community relationship should be like that: it has to be more formal than informal. In this vein of the discussion, cultural psychology can be engaged with for example in explaining different ways of meaning making or in creating

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ways of understanding that work for each party. For instance, volunteers and NGO workers might think that there is absolute independence in the community they have been sent to. It could be that they were not aware of the consequence of their actions or inactions. Preparation to move into a new interdependent community setting is very important. NGO staff and volunteers would need updated information about the communities in which they are posted to work. In agreement with the model by Charleston et al. (2017) to improve cross-cultural competence of NGOs, I would propose the application of “curiosity” and “adaptability” to be applied by NGO Mondo. The kind of training and information provided by the NGO to their staff, including volunteers, is essential since it influences their perception of the communities and the people they will be working with and sometimes staying with. The staff should be curious enough to be aware of the cultural practices of the people and the area they are going to such as staple food, housing type, economic activities, family structures, traditional governance structures, acceptable and unacceptable language use. They should also be aware of major events such as festivals that will take place in the period of their stay and the rules and regulations that come with them. It would make them adaptable as Charleston et al. proposed. Beneficiary communities could also, as part of community entry formalities for the NGO workers, share their community attributes and norms with the visitors in order to avoid conflicts during their stay. The authority of community leaders is very significant in Ghanaian communities and hence NGO staff should be informed about it. Leaders in local communities expect everyone to respect them and listen to whatever they say. Since NGO workers may come from environments where they experience their freedom from other people’s suggestions, they may find themselves in the lower range of the power distances. Local coordinators of projects, who are usually respected elderly or middle-aged people, may feel that they have the right to tell NGO staff what to do because they (local coordinators) are older, while the European volunteers and NGO workers believe that such leaders do not have power over them causing tensions along this line. On the other hand, Nelson’s (2007) action strategy of evaluating and improving performance could be used from the receiving communities’ perspective. The communities have to be provided with information on the NGO staff being sent to them, to work, stay and share their time with them. The information could go beyond the country of origin and professional background to include their hobbies, travel experiences and previous interactions with similar communities or foreign groups. This would provide the receiving community the opportunity to prepare for such an NGO worker. If there is the need for the community to be given more orientation about the NGO workers based on their profile provided, it could be done within

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the early stages of their entry into the community. This will also reduce misunderstandings between those who are sent and those who receive. What is revealing is that, though issues concerning financial accountability have risen over time, it could be said that both parties have been able to resolve the issues amicably after repetitive incidents. Usage of thumb prints to substitute signatures and preparing and issuing receipts for transactions that traditionally do not come with official receipts have minimized challenges. This means that, though financial issues have caused many relations to go sour, it can be solved if the right strategy is put in place (Nelson, 2007). This could also be framed in terms of finding a kind of semiotic mediation that both parties can work with. CONCLUSION This chapter has encountered specific conflicts between NGOs and local communities. Based on this, I would propose the use of adaptive symbols and materials that can be easily interpreted and understood by both local people and foreigners who come to stay and work with them. The relevance of thumb printing as an authentication symbol could be understood from both stakeholder positions to enhance quicker implementation of projects. Moreover, the importance of leadership by elders in the receiving communities, on the one hand, and independent movement of NGO workers and volunteers, on the other, should be symbolized and emphasized at the early stages of each new staff arrival orientation. At an organizational level, Nelson’s (2007) strategies could be a good guide for NGOs and receiving communities alike. Semiotic culture could be observed to provide initial tools for resolving the conflicts that emanate in the process. The sign sheets and other orientation materials could be used in this approach to reduce the ambivalence toward and within communities. Finally, there is evidence of NGO workers stirring conflicts at organizational and individual levels, but it does not lead to much action from the community members up to the institutional level. It could be said that NGO power and influence (Shah, 2005) make it difficult to question the NGO, even if something they or their agents do tramples on local sanctities. In this sense, ambivalence between communities is more prevalent if the relationship is such that one is clearly more powerful than the other. NGOs could therefore be affirmed to be part of the political class (Godrej, 2014; Jeater, 2011) in the developing world, who are seen as lords over the people and are therefore beyond reproach because of the consequences that this could bring. This study opens up a grey area in decades old fields like development cooperation. In this sense, further cultural psychological

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study, specifically into the meaning making of NGO staff when they accept to go to a community to work could be revealing. REFERENCES Abbey, E. (2012). Ambivalence and its transformations. In J. Valsiner (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of culture and psychology (pp. 987–997). Oxford University Press. Anheier, H. K., & Salamon, L. M. (2006). The nonprofit sector in comparative perspective. In The nonprofit sector: A research handbook. Yale University Press. Avruch, K. (1998). Culture and conflict resolution. United States Institute of Peace Press. Bob-Miller, G. (2005). NGOs in Ghana-Profit making organizations? Retrieved December 24, 2018, from https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/ features/NGOs-In-Ghana-Profit-Making-Organisations-80271 Brass, J. N. (2012). Why do NGOs go where they go? Evidence from Kenya. World Development, 40(2), 387-401. Bonzi, R. (2006). NGOs in conflict prevention: Experiences from the water sector in Ethiopia. Development in Practice, 16(2), 201–208. Brown, R. P. C. (2008). Remittances and development in the Pacific: Effects on human development in Fiji And Tonga. United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. Bangkok: Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Castañeda, A., Dung, D., Newhouse, D., Nguyen, M. C., Uematsu, H. & Azevedo, J. P. (2016). Who are the poor in the developing world? (Policy Research Working Paper no. 7844). World Bank. Charleston, B., Gajewska-De Mattos, H., & Chapman, M. (2017). Cross-cultural competence in the context of NGOs: Bridging the gap between ‘knowing’ and ‘doing’. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 29(21), 3068–3092. https://doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2016.1276469 Charmaz, K. (2006). Constructing grounded theory. SAGE. De Soto, H. (2000). The mystery of capital: Why capitalism triumphs in the West and fails everywhere else. Basic Books. Fassin, D. (2012). Humanitarian reason: A moral history of the present. University of California Press. Fountain, P. (2011). Orienting guesthood in the Mennonite central committee, Indonesia. In A. Fechter & H. Hindman (Eds.), Inside the everyday lives of development workers: The challenges and futures of Aidland. Kumarian Press. Godrej, D. (2014). NGOs-Do they help? New Internationalist. Retrieved July 15, 2019, from https://newint.org/features/2014/12/01/ngos-keynote Hart, K. (1973). Informal income opportunities and urban unemployment in Ghana. Journal of Modern African Studies, 11(1), 61–89. Hofstede, G. (2011). Dimensionalizing cultures: The Hofstede model in context. Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, 2(1). https://doi.org/10.9707/23070919.1014

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Maneuvering Around Conflicts   121 Shah, A. (2014). Causes of poverty. Retrieved January 23, 2017, from http://www. globalissues.org/issue/2/causes-of-poverty Summers, S. J., & Jones, J. (2004). Cross-cultural working in community learning disabilities services: clinical issues, dilemmas and tensions. Journal of Intellectual Disability research, 4(8), 687–694. Swanepoel, H., & de Beer, F. (2006). Community development: Breaking the cycle of poverty (4th ed.). Juta. Tomazos, K., & Butler, R. (2010). The volunteer tourist as ‘hero’. Current Issues in Tourism, 13(4), 363–380. https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500903038863 Udu, L. E. (2014). Human capacity building in selected local government areas of Ebonyi State, Nigeria: The role of non-governmental organizations and development agencies (2000–2008). Journal of Sustainable Development, 9(1), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.12735/jbm.v3i1p25 United Nations Development Programme. (2010). Human Development Report 2010. The real wealth of nations: Pathway to human development. United Nations. (2017). Sustainable Development Goals. Retrieved July 15, 2019, from http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-developmentgoals/ Vasquez-Nutall, E., Li, C., & Kaplan, J. P. (2006). Home-school partnerships with culturally diverse families: Challenges and solutions for school personnel. In B. K. Natasis (Ed.), Multicultural issues in school psychology (pp. 81–102). Haworth Press. Wearing, S. (2001). Volunteer tourism, experiences that make a difference. CABI. Wearing, S. (2004). Examining best practice in volunteer tourism. In R. A. Stebbins and M. M. Graham (Eds.), Volunteering as leisure/leisure as volunteering: An international assessment (pp. 67–91). CAB International. Yin, R. K. (1989). Case study research: Design and methods. SAGE. Yin, R. K. (2009). Case study research: Design and method. SAGE.

CHAPTER 7

RESTORATION OF PURPOSE A Goal-Focused Approach to Cultural Transformation and Well-Being Promotion Among Marginalized Communities David Krzesni and Simon Coulombe

Marginalized communities face significant barriers in society negatively impacting their well-being. This is exemplified by the hostile cultural climate in America and globally (e.g., hate crimes, Eligon, 2019; Levin, 2019; Thompson, 2019). This climate perpetuates attacks on the rights and dignities of members of targeted groups, increasingly marginalizing migrants, people of color, people living with disabilities, sexually and gender diverse individuals, and people unfairly affected by climate change. The present chapter emerges from our research program in its formative stage, where we ask how meaning-making processes might play central roles in promoting well-being among marginalized communities and in transforming suffering into resistance. How are individuals’ responses to marginalization1 influenced by, and influencing, culture? How might marginalized individuals and groups come together to collectively make

Cultural Psychology in Communities: Tensions and Transformations, pp. 123–145 Copyright © 2020 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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meaning of their social world and pursue shared projects that lead to societal transformation and greater equity? How can psychologists and other professionals support cultural change while at the same time attending to the well-being of marginalized individuals? These questions are inherently related to cultural psychology as they explore the personal and collective meaning-making processes by which people, as agents, “make culture,” “act through culture,” and contribute to transforming the social world (Valsiner, 2014). We use cultural change as an umbrella term referring to “changes in ideas, norms, and behaviors of a group of people (or changes in the contents or themes of their products reflecting such changes)” (Varnum & Grossmann, 2017, p. 957). However, we recognize that culture is more than a container that is acquired by the person (Valsiner, 2014). In line with the idea that “Culture is with the person, rather than the other way around. Yet being within entails being inbetween the person and the world” (Valsiner, 2014, p. 40, italics in original), we conceptualize cultural change as cascading through a social-ecological model emerging in the transactions between individuals, their community and society at large. Although individuals can challenge the status quo and contribute to cultural change through daily personal practices, in line with Ratner (1999), we reject views of cultural change that do not consider the political context. Coordination of individual actions with broader social actions (i.e., political, economic, military) plays a key role in transforming cultures (Ratner, 1999). As community psychologists, this chapter has a value-based perspective, demanding social change. As with cultural psychology, community psychology has an explicit focus on the context of human behavior (Cole, 1996; Moritsugu et al.,2019). However, cross-disciplinary work between cultural psychology and community psychology has been limited. While, cultural psychology can engage with community, only 28 articles mentioning “community psychology” have been published in Culture and Psychology in the last 10 years (based on searches in Google Scholar in July 2019). Rather than addressing the overarching topic of the present book through specifically discussing community as a construct (interested readers can read, e.g., Mannarini & Fedi, 2009; McMillan & Chavis, 1986), we put the ethos of community psychology to the foreground of the analysis. Values such as caring and self-determination, participation, diversity, support for community structures and social justice (Nelson & Prilleltensky, 2010) constitute the moral foundation of our exploration of the meaning-making and cultural transformation processes experienced by community members facing marginalization. Beyond its clinical meaning, the notion of change has rarely been discussed in mainstream psychology (Moghaddam, 2018), however, social change is an important topic in community psychology (Nelson & Prilleltensky, 2010); thus, this field can make important

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contributions to emerging psychological discourses, including in cultural psychology, on radical social change (see Wagoner et al., 2018). Community psychology and cultural psychology have affinity with interdisciplinary approaches (Moritsugu et al., 2019; Valsiner, 2004). In that spirit, we first review sociological and psychological concepts related to marginalization, such as alienation and anomie from Marx and Durkheim and related theoretical developments. We then explore the processes and conditions responsible for the degradation of society through alienation and anomie, and in particular, its impacts on marginalized individuals and communities. Then, we explore contemporary literature looking at the well-being, resistance, and projects of people and communities, as well as individual and community-based intervention avenues. We suggest that by centering the voices of marginalized individuals for whom society is failing and their experiences of, or resistance to, anomie and alienation, and resulting individual or collective projects, engaged researchers could contribute toward a restoration of cultural processes for the benefit of all. REVOLUTIONARY POTENTIAL IN SITUATIONS OF SOCIAL DEGRADATION Assessing the potential for cultural change, we insist that as an ontological and existential need, there is greater human potential than often realized in the current context (Freire, 2000; Marcuse, 1963/2013). We posit that the inhibition of individual and cultural potentialities has resulted from social degradation due to the replacement of innately human social values with marketized values of dominance and accumulation of capital in modern society. Marx (1844/2009) suggested that as a result of capitalism, people inevitably become alienated, not only from society but from their own humanity (Kalekin-Fishman & Langman, 2015). Such alienation, according to Marx causes people to become individualistic, self-focused and disconnected from one another (Hövermann et al., 2015; Kalekin-Fishman & Langman, 2015; Seeman, 1971). By historically situating change and human potential in the context of structural processes of degradation, we identify, in contrast, potential for cultural restoration. Although alienation degrades the entire culture, certain groups are marginalized, oppressed, and exploited by the material benefactors of marketized society (Hövermann et al., 2015). The process of marginalization can be understood as a result of devaluing and exploiting groups based on perceived differences for social, economic or material gain (Hövermann et al., 2015; Marx, 1844/2009). Those who are oppressed are well positioned to develop a critique of society. Freire (2000) suggested that only the oppressed could transform society by liberating themselves and in so

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doing, prevent the oppressors from degrading themselves through their mistreatment of others. Often, marginalized people are considered de facto deviants because the norms of the dominant cultures are defined in opposition to their identities, goals, and acts (Agnew, 1992; Baumer, 2007; Cao et al., 2010). Interestingly, most contemporary research on deviance, anomie, and alienation (described below with more details) focuses on crime-related outcomes (Agnew, 1992; Baumer, 2007; Cao et al., 2010). In that context, deviance among marginalized individuals may not only be inevitable and predetermined, but could also be seen as acts of rebellion with the capacity to challenge the social order and redefine the cultural norms of marketized iniquity (Hövermannet al., 2015; Merton, 1968). CONCEPTS OF ALIENATION AND ANOMIE Although not the originators of the concepts of alienation and anomie, two of the most influential thinkers in the emergence and development of this line of thought are Marx and Durkheim (Durkheim, 1887/2005; Horton, 1964; Marx, 1844/2009). Though Marx and Durkheim proposed differing ideas regarding alienation and anomie, both saw these concepts as radical critiques of society at large (Horton, 1964). Marx (1844/2009), following earlier philosophical works on alienation, took the concept into the social and political context of his own culture as a critique of capitalism and the social stratification and domination associated with modern Western society. Marx suggested that capitalist means of production commodified labour and disconnected people from the products and process of their labor. This commodification and disconnection, Marx believed, extended beyond work and shaped all social relations such that workers were alienated from one another and from their own humanity through the commodification of their interactions. Though not Marx’s focus, many of his contemporaries have identified how and why certain groups become marginalized and oppressed according to market interests (e.g., Hövermann et al., 2015). The selection of a group to be targeted is essentially arbitrary, but the necessity for oppression within a market society is thought to be inevitable. Therefore, the group targeted to be devalued, marginalized, or oppressed is likely to be one that is smaller and easily differentiated from the dominant group according to racial/ethnic, cultural, gender, or other minority memberships, statuses, or identities (Hövermann et al., 2015). Durkheim’s concept of anomie has largely contributed to an understanding of similar phenomena from different philosophical perspectives more focused on the function of society than the particular economic system (Durkheim, 1887/2005; Marx, 1844/2009). For Durkheim (1887/2005),

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anomie was a breakdown in social control in a society such that those experiencing anomie suffered the loss of a normative framework to govern their behavior. As a result, they experience a sense of normlessness, lack of control, and loss of meaning in their lives, which for Durkheim was an explanation for suicide, and for many of his contemporaries, an explanation of crime (e.g., Agnew, 1992; Baumer, 2007; Cao et al., 2010). For Durkheim and Marx, anomie and alienation, respectively, served as measures and critiques of the society that produced them (Durkheim, 1887/2005, Horton, 1964). However, in the field of psychology, the concepts have been somewhat diluted in their application to individual well-being and have therefore lost a critical edge (Horton, 1964; Merton, 1968; Seeman, 1971). Within our transdisciplinary approach to psychology, we highlight the importance of addressing alienation comprehensively, including the meso- and macrolevels rather than just the individual. Merton (1968) defined strain as the inability to achieve the goals considered important within a culture using “legitimate” means. Such conflict could, but does not inevitably, result in conditions similar to anomie or alienation. Merton suggested that in the context of strain, people’s actions could be understood according to their acceptance or rejection of society’s prescribed goals, the means available to achieve those goals, and their construction of, or deference to, new or other goals and means. Merton’s typology of responses to strain provides insight on how individuals make meaning of their unjust experience and how they might respond in ways likely to be labeled deviant by the dominant class. Rebellion, as defined in Merton’s (1968) typology, is the rejection of the goals and means of the status quo and the selection of alternative goals and means. For example, people might reject the goal of accumulating capital through the means of selling their labour and instead devote themselves to a political struggle against capitalism. We argue that if one’s experience of strain is the result of rampant marketized iniquity within a society that systematically marginalizes and oppresses individuals and groups for the benefit of the dominant class, rebellion is not only justified but necessary. Furthermore, as groups are often marginalized according to perceived ethnic or cultural differences, their cultural identities and associations may provide alternative normative frameworks from which they may select alternative goals and means. Such a process would represent both a rejection of the dominant culture and potentially a restoration of their own culture. Innovation, according to Merton (1968), is to accept the cultural goals, but reject what the culture has defined as the valid means of achieving them. In a society of marketized iniquity, the innovator could be morally justified in behaving defiantly, although most literature associates such behavior with crime (Agnew, 1992; Baumer, 2007; Cao et al., 2010). In fact, many people throughout history have committed crimes that were viewed

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favorably in retrospect (e.g., Rosa Parks). In their discussion of political conflict in Eritrea, Hirt and Mohammad (2013) suggest that political dissonance, draft dodging, or fleeing the country are innovations in response to the rejection of the Eritrean regime’s norms. Conformity is the acceptance of both the cultural goals and the institutionally legitimate means for achieving them. Ritualism is the rejection of cultural goals but acceptance of the means. Ritualists might continue their behavior as expected according to their culture, with no hope of achieving societal goals. Toward supporting improvements in the conformist’s or ritualist’s condition, a critical conscientization (Freire, 1998) process may be necessary, to help people reflect on if or how their inability to achieve their goal is the result of a structural injustice rather than an individual shortcoming. Such a reflection could inspire them to select new goals or new means, which may include direct efforts to redress strain. Retreatism is the rejection of both society’s goals and the means for achieving them. Merton (1968) suggested the retreatist would be likely to resort to drugs or alcohol and be at risk of suicide. However, if we consider the individual’s perceptions and the possibility that the cultural norms and means are wrong, we suggest that with support, those who retreat may also have revolutionary potential. The Beat Movement and subsequent social movements in the United States in the 1960s and 70s could be viewed as having started as a retreatist effort. As Timothy Leary suggested in 1966, people may “turn on, tune in, and drop out” but through doing so, they become part of a social movement built on the rejection of society (Leary, 1999). So far, we have provided an overview of the social structure and those processes that impose anomie and alienation on marginalized individuals. Let us not forget that anomie (or alienation), according to Durkheim (1887/2005), is a life-threatening condition. Society is failing those who experience anomie, and that injustice must be structurally addressed, but we cannot favor revolution at the expense of the well-being and survival of those who are most immediately and severely suffering. Therefore, we suggest that even ameliorative efforts like well-being support, that can be criticized as “band-aids” in service to a neoliberal agenda, might become steps on a path to transformative cultural change. A FOCUS ON WELL-BEING AND RESISTANCE We conceptualize well-being disparities as structural injustice rather than a result of any personal deficit among people suffering the mental health consequences of oppression. For example, a large body of research supports that sexually and gender diverse individuals experience lower well-being

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than heterosexual cisgender people due to the heteronormativity and cisgenderism they face in the dominant culture (Meyer, 2003; Reisner et al., 2015). This is consistent with theoretical work in community psychology, in which fairness is considered a key factor underlying wellness (Prilleltensky, 2012). However, multiple studies have shown that people can live happy and fulfilled lives in harsh environments with minimal material resources (Biswas-Diener & Diener, 2001). In contrast to an individualistic perspective attributing this finding to people’s resilience potential, which can be criticized for representing a neoliberal concept (Joseph, 2013), we focus on the concept of resistance. This refers to marginalized communities as acting collectively to challenge the oppressive conditions that are impacting their lives (Case & Hunter, 2012). For example, the very existence of Indigenous peoples, despite ongoing colonization processes and attempted genocides, is an act of resistance against the dominant social order. Marginalized individuals’ and groups’ acts of resistance refer to engaging in non-normative behaviors with the intent to critique social oppression (Case & Hunter, 2012). Such acts of resistance are facilitated in “counterspace” settings that promote narrative work, that is, a “process by which individuals or collectives give meaning to themselves and others through narratives,” bringing “healing and restoration to marginalized individuals through contesting pejorative societal representations relative to these individuals and their reference groups” (Case & Hunter, 2012, p. 262). Based on that, we argue that meaning-making processes play a central role in well-being and in transforming suffering into resistance. This is aligned with the work of Frankl (1959/1985) who suggested that finding meaning or purpose in suffering was a means of overcoming it. This was his key to surviving the concentration camps during World War II. He suggested people could become worthy of suffering (a concept he borrowed from Dostoyevsky) and in so doing, maintained their spiritual freedom, even in death. As Frankl put it: any man [sic]2 can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him[sic]—mentally and spiritually. He[sic] may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp. Dostoevsky said once, “There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.” (p. 33)

We continue to live in societies where oppressed individuals are treated as if there is no value in them; as Llebensunweten Lebens, “life unworthy of life.” For those suffering the greatest consequences of this normalized iniquity, surviving is an act of defiance and thriving is potentially revolutionary. A comprehensive approach to the psychological well-being of marginalized people must look not only at the societal and structural factors that may negatively impact mental health, but also at the strengths among margin-

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alized individuals and communities. Those facing oppression may face mental health problems as a result of their mistreatment by society, but that could be considered a healthy response to a sick society (King, 1968; Martín-Baró, 1994). One challenge is to find ways to support well-being in such contexts in ways that do not negate or justify the unfair condition but rather support well-being through resistance. Those harmed by society are not simply or fully damaged people. Research has shown well-being to be distinct from the presence or absence of mental health issues and positive mental health and mental illness are independent constructs (Keyes, 2005; Keyes et al., 2008). Health is more than the absence of illness (World Health Organization, 1948). Positive mental health includes hedonic well-being (i.e., positive feelings toward one’s life) as well as eudaimonic well-being (i.e., positive personal and social functioning in life) (Keyes et al., 2012). Of particular importance to the current chapter, eudaimonic well-being refers to people’s actualization of their true self (daemon), including developing a sense of purpose and direction in life and pursuing meaningful life goals that are consistent with their values (Ryan & Deci, 2001). However, in Western settings, efforts to promote well-being often emphasize the promotion of happiness through interventions, concepts and measures that ignore cultural values, distributive injustice, and other forms of oppression (Christopher, 1999; Christopher & Howe, 2014). In cultures or contexts beyond such privileged Western settings, or among marginalized individuals, well-being may be conceived and experienced differently based on other goals, concerns, or experiences. Thus, the relative significance of different influences on well-being are likely idiosyncratic; influenced by one’s unique personality, culture, material conditions, and political environment (Christopher, 1999; Christopher & Howe, 2014). It is critical to find a balance between acknowledging the predominant structural influences on health and well-being of marginalized and oppressed people and affirming/supporting their resistance and well-being. Such a balancing act, we argue, requires a comprehensive perspective that most of the aforementioned social theories and contemporary psychology frameworks (including cultural and community psychology) do not readily offer. OUR PROPOSED APPROACH: WELL-BEING AND CULTURAL CHANGE THROUGH PERSONAL AND COLLECTIVE PROJECTS As a central aspect of human existence, human actions are oriented toward future goals, located at the interface of our past, present and future; we “exist as we plan” (Valsiner, 2016, p. 15, italics in the original). Consistently,

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we turn to personal projects, a goal-related construct, as a fundamental unit of analysis with promising potential to help understand our topic of inquiry from an integrated perspective (Little, 2015). Developed in environmental and personality psychology, the personal project analysis (PPA) (Little, 1983) represents an innovative method for promoting the well-being of all (Little, 2000a), in which personal projects are idiosyncratic actions, centered on goals, aspirations, or concerns intended to achieve or avoid specific outcomes (Little & Coulombe, 2015). Our personal projects are a core component of our identities and life stories, including daily activities as well as lifelong goals/aspirations (Little, 1989). These range from mundane tasks like brushing our teeth to more profound projects, such as liberating our people (Little, 1989). They can involve any aspect of one’s life, from self-related projects to leisure, social relationships, school/work, community involvement, etc. (Little & Gee, 2007; Little & Coulombe, 2015). Personal projects exist across multiple domains and are influenced by one’s social relations, culture, environment, political, and economic contexts, in line with a traditional ecological approach to human development (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). PPA methodology strives to provide a reflexive approach to explore well-being by recognizing people as experts of their own lives capable of defining and assessing their projects (Little, 2000b). This offers a way to understand people’s interactions with life contexts and their well-being without enforcing culturally normative values or definitions (Little, 2000b). Similar to cultural psychology’s view that individuals are agents who construe meaning as they interact with the world (Valsiner, 2004), personal projects are goal-oriented “goggles” through which people see and give meaning to their world and interact with their environment (Little, 2000b). Personal projects are “personal” in the spirit of Kelly’s (1955) personal construct theory, according to which people have idiosyncratic conceptual templates according to which they “view the constantly changing contexts of daily life” (Little, 2007, p. 9) and that they can revise as a result of their experience. Little’s (1983) social-ecological model proposes that personal projects are the channels through which individual and contextual factors interact and impact well-being (Little, 2000a, 2010). The PPA measurement device asks people to identify their current projects, and to appraise them around five fundamental themes: meaningfulness (e.g., do I identify with this project?), manageability (e.g., do I make progress in this project?), connection (e.g., am I supported by other people?), positive affect (e.g., do I feel loved when doing this project?), and negative affect (e.g., do I feel anger when doing this project?) (Little & Coulombe, 2015). A positive appraisal around these five themes has been related to higher well-being

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in studies with frequently marginalized individuals (i.e., people living with disabilities, same-sex couples; Davis et al., 2013; Frost, 2009). PPA may be stated to lack critical approaches, particularly that personal projects are often assumed to take place in a post-material world (Emmons, 1999). However, this may be due more to the context in which PPA has been applied, than its actual capacity. PPA explicitly recognizes, for example, the role of economic forces on personal projects (Little & Coulombe, 2015). Furthermore, the PPA device is modular; it considers diverse ad hoc appraisal dimensions specific to contexts, communities, and populations. For example, project devaluation and macrosocial barriers (e.g., laws) have been appraised for the projects of LGBTQ individuals (Frost, 2009, 2011). Economic hindrance of projects (Makinen, 1996) can be added as project appraisal dimensions that people can be encouraged to reflect on. Little (1989, p. 28) mentioned that personal projects promote “coherence by enabling us simultaneously to think globally and act locally.” In congruence, we argue that the simultaneous consideration of macrolevel and microlevel factors and how they affect people’s lives at the individual and collective level allows us to comprehensively understand the concerns, aspirations, and journey of marginalized individuals and communities facing anomie and alienation, and to work alongside them in effecting cultural change. In that sense, we conceive the PPA framework to be mesolevel. Depending on the content of one’s project, its pursuit could lead to an improvement in material and societal conditions that would promote long-term individual or even collective well-being. We believe that even without explicit revolutionary intent, pursuing and achieving one’s goals in contexts where oppression and marginalization create barriers is inherently defiant and inevitably has revolutionary potential. For example, the publicly visible relationship projects of LGBTQ individuals, who have historically been denied marriage rights, are likely to have played an important role in contributing to shifting the culture towards more public and institutional acceptance of same-sex marriage, resulting in legal reforms that have happened in recent decades around the globe (Little & Frost, 2013). This exemplifies how processes through which new activities and views that are initially generated by individuals can have cascading effects that challenge the status quo under certain conditions (e.g., “social interaction with other individuals,” as described by cultural psychologist Ratner, 1999, p. 25). “People pursuing projects with which they are unable to identify are more likely to feel alienated and disengaged from society” (Little & Gee, 2007, p. 65), making the pursuit of meaningful projects and goals a valuable avenue of exploration for people who live under alienating conditions. At the individual level, the PPA device can be integrated into peer support and (mental) healthcare services used by people from marginalized communities facing alienation/anomie. The integration of PPA in such contexts

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has great potential to support marginalized people in (a) developing their awareness of the ways society and its normative framework influence (and often unfairly prevent) their goals, and (b) if needed, helping to identify goals that could provide meaning and cultural references that are alternative to that of society’s norms, but that support a positive sense of identity. We do not presume whether or not the person providing support is also personally experiencing alienation; we simply suggest facilitators may learn a set of tools (such as personal project interview/measurements tools, Little, 1983; cultural humility skills, Rincón, 2016; allyship capacities, Forber-Pratt et al., 2018), to appropriately support individuals in critically reflecting on their own goals. At the group level, projects within marginalized communities provide essential social-ecological information about the quality of society’s structures and more directly how society may be failing those communities. An assessment of those projects for both their goals and the potential barriers could inform community-based efforts as well as policy, such as social protection, to better support or enable marginalized groups in achieving their aspirations and meeting their needs (Little & Coulombe, 2015; Little, 1989). To expand, in the following section we elaborate on ways in which this can be accomplished by integrating PPA with a participatory action research (PAR) framework (Stringer, 2013) toward the development of a “collective” projects approach. PROJECT-BASED CONSCIENTIZATION WORK AND PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH In order for our approach to achieve its transformative potential, we propose a conscientization process involving individual and collective meaningmaking, in the spirit of Paulo Freire (2000). A process of conscientization focused on personal projects can encourage marginalized individuals to come together, for example in a group discussion setting, to recognize that the factors impacting their projects are often resulting from unfair social circumstances (Freire, 2000). A potential outcome of that process could be revolutionary deviance similar to Merton’s (1968) rebellion typology, viewed as a response to structural injustice rather than internalized as individual immoral behavior (Freire, 2000; Marcuse, 1963/2013). While deviance may be a response to alienation, it is the meaning that one associates with one’s project that creates the revolutionary potential in deviance. We suggest that a group facilitator could support meaning making by helping people to critically reflect on the social-ecological factors impacting their existing projects and to develop new potentially liberating projects. That critical meaning-making process may also support a more positive sense of identity

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among marginalized individuals who may be viewed negatively as deviants by the dominant class (Case & Hunter, 2012). Such critical reflection on personal projects, given its action-oriented approach to well-being, would also contribute to developing communitybased participatory action research (CBPAR) projects. In Western empirical traditions, Freire’s approach has inspired a variety of participatory and/or action research methods (Baum et al., 2006; Wallerstein & Duran, 2008). Participatory action research is an approach where community members are involved in research to develop local knowledge and inform action and policy (Stringer, 2013), and it represents one of the main intervention tools and methods used by community psychologists (Nelson & Prilleltensky, 2010). We see great potential in integrating action research practices with personal projects and insights from Freire and Frankl toward a collective projects approach. This would mean expanding the focus from personal to collective projects. This would empower people to engage in collective action for transformative change and thereby shift a narrative of individual deviance to a narrative of collective rebellion (Freire, 2000; Freire & Freire, 1992/1994; Merton, 1968). Collective projects could be formulated based on shared interests, aspirations, or barriers to individuals’ and communities’ projects in the context of structural injustice. Such collective projects could create circumstances more accommodating to each individual’s unique idiosyncratic projects, provide alternative frameworks among new or renewed cultures or subcultures, and provide a powerful avenue to forming social movements. Freire insisted on a critical reading of the word as well as the world; the scholarly pursuits, and the knowledge of lived-experience (Freire & Freire, 1992/1994). He used a similar literacy metaphor to suggest that through such a critical reading, people become authors in the world and thereby gain agency not only in denouncing the world that is, but also in announcing the new reality (Freire, 1998). Freire insisted that this conscientization process should not be fully deconstructive and that it must include a generative approach based on hope (Freire & Freire, 1992/1994). Freire saw hope as an “existential, concrete imperative” but also argued that, while hope and generativity are necessary, they are not sufficient to transform reality on their own (Freire & Freire 1992/1994, p. 8). In practice, Freire focused largely on developing literacy in rural disempowered communities (Freire, 2000). He insisted that such consciousness-raising processes would be effective in other settings; however, they had to be developed within each unique context. He saw a role for educators in facilitating those processes. Not in authoritarian or didactic

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ways, simply by sharing and developing knowledge and encouraging reflection and action. In the spirit of Freire, we argue that through critical reflection, and during the pursuit of their projects, people could become critically conscious of the social structures within which they pursue their projects. Through such a facilitated reflective process people may come to recognize that the barriers to their projects actually represent structural injustice and that furthermore, those barriers are impacting other members of their communities or identity groups, and that they have collective agency in creating change. In light of our approach being in a formative stage toward a model for cultural restoration through personal and collective projects, we present a concept map (Figure 7.1) linking project dimensions with an ecological model toward collective projects and culture change. Figure 7.1 displays personal and collective projects integrated with a social-ecological approach. The top hemisphere reflects the dimensions of personal projects across different levels of an ecological model. A project could be assessed according to each intersection. For example, one might ask how culture impacts the meaning one gives to a project, or what interpersonal factors influence the manageability of the project. We conceptualize the top hemisphere of the figure as the inputs for personal projects, which could have the capacity to spur cultural change. We conceptualize the bottom hemisphere as the possible outputs related to cultural change. A personal project could grow into a collective project of cultural change or could directly impact change through a single individual’s project pursuit. On the right and left sides of the bottom hemisphere, we also conceptualize the outcomes of projects as cultural change cascading outward from an individual and their projects. Across the middle of the circle, we place well-being in the ecological model parallel to the positive and negative affect dimensions of projects (i.e., directly related to hedonic well-being). This reflects that well-being, through projects, links the inputs and outputs through the ecological levels in which a project takes place. Even despite outputs such as culture change, the meaningful pursuit of a project could support the well-being of marginalized people. We also present an application of the model to the imagined projects of trans individuals facing anomie or alienation (Figure 7.2). Although we have not interpreted every intersection, the example illustrates how it could be used to conceptualize efforts for cultural change centered on the projects of marginalized individuals. We offer Figure 7.1 to readers as a way to map project-centered change efforts and to think through the social or cultural change potential of a personal project as an amendment to the existing PPA device and theory (Little, 1983; Little & Gee, 2007).

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Figure 7.1.  Cultural restoration through the projects of marginalized individuals in anomic contexts.

TOWARD A PROGRAM OF RESEARCH AT THE INTERSECTION BETWEEN COMMUNITY AND CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY Although the present chapter reflects a formative stage of our research program, Coulombe and colleagues have previously utilized CBPAR in a long-term community project aimed to address mental health and wellbeing disparities in public housing in Montreal, Canada (Coulombe et al., 2018; Houle et al., 2016; Houle et al., 2017). Although it was not framed around the use of personal projects as a theoretical lens, as shown below, it provides empirical material to illustrate the approach that we suggest. The project, directed by Dr. Janie Houle, consisted of three phases: (1) The research team, in partnership with the housing residents working as

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Figure 7. 2.  Illustration of our approach in the context of transgender individuals facing anomie within prevailing cisgenderist culture

peer researchers, assessed the needs and strengths of the community; (2) Together they created an action plan through a community forum and capacity-building and discussion sessions; (3) The group implemented the action plan and did advocacy work with stakeholders and policymakers in the environment to address the community needs and support wellbeing. This CBPAR process utilized photovoice (Wang & Burris, 1997) to engage with the community and has resulted in tangible changes both in the physical environment and in terms of mental health and social capital (Houle et al., 2017).

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Reflecting on this CBPAR process, we identify several analogies with principles discussed in this chapter. First, CBPAR involved an individual and a collective meaning-making process, where residents of the public housing settings came to see commonalities between their needs and goals and those of their coresidents, and thus they were able to develop collective projects through their action plan. This allowed them to begin to address the class-related oppression that they were facing, visible for example in stigmatizing housing policies and through lack of recognition of their voices and their dignity. Those living in public housing could potentially feel like passive subjects of the social order with a limited agency due to their reliance on government assistance. Furthermore, they may feel that they have not met the cultural goals of capitalist society and that they do not have the means to achieve those goals, as passive subjects receiving a housing that is owned, and to some extent surveilled, by a government agency. Through the participatory approach, the team may have contributed to a collective shift in cultural norms toward greater empowerment among residents, and increased engagement in making meaningful changes in their community, which would both benefit mental health and promote improvements in their environment. An even broader impact resulted from the collaborative planning of a community art exhibit and forum that were attended by the broader community and decision makers. The increased awareness promoted by the event, might at the very least have a potential to influence the societal culture, particularly related to class-based oppression. We are currently engaged in several other initiatives using personal projects approaches, CBPAR, and the theories and approaches discussed in this chapter. One initiative relates to supporting newcomer youth in an English literacy development program in Ontario, Canada through understanding and developing the projects of students, parents, and school staff in search of opportunities for collective action. The goal is to explore individually and culturally meaningful and collective projects, to support both well-being and academic engagement among the students. Similar studies overseen by Coulombe and his team relate to the projects and well-being of students from marginalized backgrounds (e.g., Coulombe & Hardy, in press), of people with disabilities, and those living with mental health issues. Krzesni is developing a project in Marshall Islands, one of the nations considered most vulnerable to climate change, projected to become uninhabitable within our lifetime (Storlazzi et al., 2018) and where for a variety of reasons, nearly 30% of the Marshallese population have migrated abroad (International Organization for Migration, 2017). Within this challenging context, the project aims to understand and support Marshallese people in achieving their goals by contributing to the formation and achievement of collective projects.

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CONCLUSION In this chapter, we propose that when the status quo of a culture is one of marketized iniquity, deviance can be revolutionary. We have proposed a meso-level approach building on Little’s (1983) PPA to understand better how marginalized people can make sense of their social world, and through an emphasis on goal-directed projects, resist and improve their well-being. Conceptualized as a restoration of purpose, at both individual and collective levels, we have come to the position that a meaningful path toward cultural change could be developed through supporting people facing marginalization in pursuing the projects that are meaningful to them. We believe that collective projects may then emerge with the capacity to create a cascade of change through the culture. The pursuit of meaningful goals could be both protective for the individual against anomie or alienation in the context of oppressive norms, and act as a catalyst for collective projects, the emergence of countercultures, and finally be a source of alternative normative frameworks to support both individual and collective well-being. Moreover, for marginalized individuals against whom society is structured, pursuing meaningful projects, thriving, or even surviving, are, in our opinion, in themselves defiant, radical, or revolutionary acts. Although we rely on some of the prominent intellectuals of past centuries and decades such as Marx, Marcuse, and Freire, we wish to conclude with an acknowledgement that we live in a unique time and in unique contexts. Each expressed a sentiment that their work needed to be adapted for the context in which it was to be used. In particular, Marcuse wrote about a notion of revolutionary potential and its assessment in a particular historical moment. We remain hopeful that not just despite the challenges of our time, but because of them, our historical moment at this late stage of capitalism holds revolutionary potential. We see hope in activism and in the seemingly increasing awareness of societies’ failures (i.e., critical consciousness). Not only are we hopeful for cultural change, but we also see it as an imperative; change is not only possible, it is necessary. As one of the founders of social ecology foresaw more than 30 years ago in considering the possibility of human extinction put it, “if we do not do the impossible, we shall be faced with the unthinkable” (Bookchin, 1982, p. 65). For many communities, this unthinkable future has arrived. We have reached a peak of social and environmental degradation that threatens the habitability of our planet and has resulted in the extinction of countless species. We will face a drastically changing climate—together. With fewer resources, fewer habitable regions, and increasing numbers of people displaced, conflict increases (Alvarez, 2017; Zimmerer, 2007, 2014a, 2014b). If this is not the moment of greatest potential, it could be nearing a time that is the last possible moment in which we still have an opportunity for cultural

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restoration, to reach our higher potential, and to announce our new world through cultural transformation. As Freire (1998) said, “Transformation of the world implies a dialectic between two actions: denouncing the process of dehumanization and announcing the dream of a new society” (p. 74). We also provide some more practical conclusions for community workers, educators, and practitioners of various disciplines toward supporting those who are suffering on what we hope is a path toward cultural transformation. Supportive interventions for marginalized people in anomic contexts should emphasize the construction of an alternative normative framework, through critical reflection and meaning making centered around the pursuit of people’s own idiosyncratic goals and aspirations. Through such a reflection, one may discover resemblances or compatibilities between their own goals and those of the various normative subgroups that they identify with (e.g., religions, gender or sexual identities, occupations), or may construct new groups according to the discovered compatibilities. As a result, emergent normative frameworks and cultural identities could be established, providing an increased sense of belonging and playing a psychologically protective role against cultural anomie. In the spirit of popular education and consciousness-raising (Freire, 2000), participatory community-level programs and action research initiatives engage marginalized individuals in a similar meaning making process to identify and create the societal conditions that would better support their goals and needs, which can simultaneously contribute to a cascading effect of cultural transformation. In closing, we remember the Spanish revolutionary leader Buenaventura Durruti. Denouncing iniquity and announcing a new society, he offered some inspiring words, which we leave as our concluding thought: It is we who built these palaces and cities, here in Spain and America and everywhere. We, the workers. We can build others to take their place. And better ones! We are not in the least afraid of ruins. We are going to inherit the earth; there is not the slightest doubt about that. The bourgeoisie might blast and ruin its own world before it leaves the stage of history. We carry a new world here, in our hearts. That world is growing this minute. (Van Paassen, 1936, para. 6, emphasis added)

NOTES 1. Term used in this chapter to refer to “the context in which those who routinely experience inequality, injustice, and exploitation live their lives” (Brown & Strega, 2005, p. 6). 2. We use the Latin adverb sic here to call attention to the fact that although we have quoted the passage as it was written, we feel that the use of “man” or

Restoration of Purpose   141 “mankind” in a pluralistic sense is archaic and uninclusive language. However, we also acknowledge that use of this was the norm at the time that many of the authors we have cited were writing.

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Restoration of Purpose   145 Thompson, S. (2019, April 25). False reports of hate crimes few and far between, says expert. Global News. https://globalnews.ca/news/5201888/false-reports-ofhate-crimes-few-and-far-between-says-expert/ Valsiner, J. (2004). Three years later: Culture in psychology—between social positioning and producing new knowledge. Culture & Psychology, 10(1), 5–27. Valsiner, J. (2014). An invitation to cultural psychology. SAGE. Valsiner, J. (2016, July 27). The human psyche on the border of irreversible time: Forward-oriented semiosis. Invited address at the 31st International Congress of Psychology Yokohama. Van Paassen, P. (1936, August 18). Durruti Dumange, José Buenaventura: 2 000 000 anarchists fight for revolution says Spanish leader. The Toronto Daily Star, pp. 1–5. Varnum, M. E. W., & Grossmann, I. (2017). Cultural change: The how and the why. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 12(6), 956–972. Wagoner, B., Moghaddam, F. M., & Valsiner, J. (Eds.). (2018). The psychology of radical social change: From rage to revolution. Cambridge University Press. Wallerstein, N., & Duran, B. (2008). The theoretical, historical, and practice roots of community based participatory research. In M. Minkler & N. Wallerstein (Eds.), Community-based participatory research for health (pp. 27–52). Jossey-Bass. Wang, C., & Burris, M. A. (1997). Photovoice: Concept, methodology, and use for participatory needs assessment. Health Education & Behavior, 24(3), 369–387. World Health Organization. (1948). Constitution of the World Health Organization. Zimmerer, J. (2007). From the editors: Environmental genocide? Climate change, mass violence and the question of ideology. Journal of Genocide Research, 9(3), 349–351. Zimmerer, J. (2014a). Climate change, environmental violence and genocide. International Journal of Human Rights, 18(3), 265–280. Zimmerer, J. (2014b). Foreword. International Journal of Human Rights, 18(3), 263–264.

CHAPTER 8

COMMENTARY— EXPERIENCING CHANGE Interrelations Between Individual and Social Transformations Sarah H. Awad

In this commentary, I elaborate on the dynamic interrelation between individual and social change, looking at the process by which each influences the other. Through the different case studies presented in this book, I draw up several central processes and resources that individuals and groups resort to in times of personal and collective change. The chapter’s structure will flow from experiencing change at the personal level in one’s own life trajectory and the meaning-making processes individuals engage in to adapt to change. To then looking at experiencing change as a community and the process by which individual trajectories become part of a collective, through emerging new social identity groups engaging in a collective meaning-making process. To finally looking at how those individuals and groups experiencing change attempt to bring about change in the bigger society, looking at minority influence and processes of public intervention.

Cultural Psychology in Communities: Tensions and Transformations, pp. 147–158 Copyright © 2020 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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Shortly after the fall of the Egyptian old regime of Mubarak in 2011, an activist friend said to me: “it is now time to get rid of the dictator within us.” It was a time that redefined what is possible and a time of new realizations of the potential for individual and collective change. There was a heightened sense of agency among people, as the activists were becoming aware of—what then seemed to be—the success of the revolution in ending a 30-year-old dictatorship and bringing about the revolution’s goals of justice, democracy, and social equality. This societal and political change did not only shape—for better or worse—the country’s trajectory for years to come but also had an irreversible influence on many individuals’ life trajectories (Awad, 2016). For some, like the mentioned activist, it was a time to deeply question many of the established structures and norms, and to reconstruct them; both the collective and the personal. A time to free themselves from their own internalized dictator that had been telling them how to live their life and how to think. The sociopolitical change introduced by the revolution shook the ground of the many “givens,” calling for many of the taken for granted norms and ideas to be revisited. This brought about the possibility of discussing different forms of change; from issues that are often lived through as individualized experiences such as depression, divorce and suicide, to reconstructing shared public discourses about issues such as freedom of expression, gender and sexual diversity, different political ideologies and freedom of and from religion. The socially shared changes certainly propelled subsequent individual changes, but the socially shared changes were at the same time the result of preceding changes of individual perceptions, norms, and actions. Cause and effect thus go together in an interrelated cycle. For example, there are many preceding individual changes that led to the revolution, such as a gradual raise in the political awareness among the younger generations, opening up for their actions in exposing the brutality of the regime through online media. There were also preceding group level changes, as underground and oppositional communities were growing, generating circles, and building connections with one another. On the other hand, the social change of the revolution had a significant effect on different individuals and groups. For example, for many protestors, their participation gave them a sense of purpose and a meaningful social and political participation in the society. This was followed also by a broad sense of invincible power when becoming aware that the protests were successful. However, as events unfolded and another authoritarian regime came to power, many people experienced a sense of grief and loss. But even though the revolutionary changes they sought were not achieved, their strengthened sense of agency derived from the experience still influenced their personal life choices, such as in resisting certain ideologies and patriarchal family structures (Awad, 2016). Also, many of those who were followers to

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the old regime experienced isolation from society and social stigma after the initial victory. They felt that they had to suffer the consequences of a revolution they never chose nor agreed with. Nevertheless, regardless of one’s position towards the revolution and the subsequent social and psychological experiences, there were very tangible changes in individuals’ lives. For example, some lost a loved one during the events, or lost their job and income, or experienced major changes within and in- between their social groups because of political polarization. So, if we were to understand the social change of the revolution from a psychological point of view, we need to look idiographically at how individuals constituted that change, experienced it, and were affected by it in their own personal lives. The focus on individuals’ sociocultural and psychological particulars can then provide us with an opportunity to understand processes of change within individuals, communities, and the bigger society (Salvatore & Valsiner, 2010). Looking at change in the interrelation between individual and social transformations also illustrates the continuous power struggle between self and society, where individuals’ agency in changing their society prevails sometimes, while disempowering social structures prevail at other times. In this commentary, I explore the broad question of how social and individual changes interrelate and influence one another. Durkheim’s (1897/1951) classical work on suicide has shown the powerful impact that social factors can have on our own, very personal lives. He argued that suicide, which appears to be a phenomenon relating to the individual’s psychological state, is not entirely personal but could be influenced by social imbalance and dysfunctional aspects of a society. Durkheim emphasized, in what would later be considered as a functionalistic approach, that a social equilibrium existed in a given society when the interrelated parts of that society were in balance. Disruption of this equilibrium was the main cause of the seemingly most personal choice of all; the choice to end one’s life. Whether this choice was made due to a lack of social integration or because of a “too deep” and self-destructive social integration, or because of social instability and the breakdown of norms, the choice was firmly fixed to or determined by changes appearing in the societal body according to Durkheim. Much research since Durkheim’s (1897/1951) classic book Suicide has shown how different kinds of social ruptures can produce significant psychological turmoil. Social unrest for example disrupts the status quo and calls for a reconstruction of national identities and social representations (Herrmann et al., 2009). Social uprisings produce novelty into individuals’ lives that might deeply transform their identities and redefine their way of considering social relations (Awad, 2016). Economic crises and subsequent unemployment also influence change in the content and value dimensions

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of identity (Jahoda, 1982). Death and loss of loved ones also challenge one’s core beliefs and disrupt the coherence of self-narratives (Neimeyer et al., 2010). Within this broad topic of social change’s influences on individual changes, I will not attempt to draw on causal relationships between certain social changes and certain concrete consequences on individuals, but I will rather discuss different processes of experiencing and influencing change at the individual and collective level. I will use the different case studies presented in this book to elaborate on several central processes and resources that individuals and groups draw upon in times of personal and collective change. First, I will look at experiencing change at the individual level in one’s own life trajectory and the meaning-making processes individuals engage in to adapt to change. Second, I will move on to look at experiencing change as a community, and the process by which individual trajectories become part of a collective, through the emerging of new social identity groups engaging in a collective meaning-making process. Third and finally, I will explore bottom-up social change, looking at how those individuals and groups experiencing change attempt to create change in the bigger society, looking at minority influence and processes of public intervention. EXPERIENCING CHANGE THROUGHOUT ONE’S LIFE TRAJECTORY Experiencing change in one’s life is an inevitable factor of living, regardless of how stable one’s life might be. However, I would like to focus here on how we experience life-changing events, those that are perceived as ruptures in our life stories. Ruptures are conceptualized here as those events, which could be experienced positively or negatively, that substantially disrupt a person’s daily life routines and question a person’s own sense of self and identity (Zittoun et al., 2013). Throughout our lives, we are developing through our sociocultural environment by continuously making meaning of our lives, thus mediating our sense of self and our relationship to our surrounding culture and society (Vygotsky, 1978). This process is often taken for granted in everyday life where routine prevails, but when events of personal or social change occur we are stimulated to reflect and reconstruct new meanings about the situation in an attempt to amend the rupture and adapt through the change (Crossley, 2000; Valsiner, 2003). Breakwell (1986), in her work on identity process through change and coping strategies, suggests that once we are confronted with a rupture we engage in different coping strategies in relation to our identity process. One

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strategy is an intrapersonal cognitive and emotional attempt at reconciling and protecting our identity. Another strategy is an interpersonal one, where we redefine our relationship with others. A third strategy is at the intergroup level, where we restructure group memberships and possibly pursue action. Those different strategies of coping with change inform the next sections as we move from meaning making at the individual level, to meaning making within and in-between new group memberships, and towards collective action. For this section, we will focus on the intrapersonal processes and resources for adaptation. Ruptures can create a possibility for a heightened sense of agency for us to generate adaptive new relationships to people around us and to our environment. In times of change we attempt to make sense of what that change would mean to our personal lives, to our social groups and communities and to our society at large. Those times call on us to search for, and make use of, different resources from our environment to adapt through the process of transformation and maintain some continuity in how we see our surrounding and ourselves (Zittoun el al., 2013). One central resource in this process is meaning making. Meaning making is a crucial resource in coping with change, and the outcome of our meaning-making processes at those times shapes our capacity to cope and shapes our identity process after the rupture. Through constructing new meanings we can redefine ourselves throughout the changing contexts and thus maintain a sense of control and efficacy. Whether conscious or unconscious we strive to make meaning of change in order to cope and in order to maintain a coherent life story that is consistent with what we believe to be the core that defines us; even if we think that things will never be the same again (Zittoun el al., 2013). This meaning making process is developed as we engage in “reflexivity,” which is our capacity to think about ourselves and reflect inwardly (Parker, 1991). The meaning making process is also facilitated through imagination, in which we gain capacity to alter our relationship to the world rather than accepting it as it, and thus become able to reflect and imagine different possibilities out of the situation (Zittoun el al., 2013). Another resource is also reconstructive remembering (Bartlett, 1932). Here memory is not perceived as a literal recall from a stored collection of mental images, but rather a creative process of reconstructive remembering. When we recall certain rupture events, we reconstruct our experience based on the demands of the present time and influenced by the current social context as well as our possible orientation towards future adaptation. This conceptualization sees our remembering as an active affective and emotional—as well as cognitive—process involving self-reflexivity and meaning making. This also makes remembering both a personal and social act, influenced by possibilities as well as constraints of our social worlds and open to

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reinterpretation to fit our present circumstances and willingness to adapt (Bartlett, 1932; Wagoner, 2017). Through meaning making, reflexivity, reconstructive remembering and imagination, we make sense of unpredictable changes and assimilate the rupture through a process of reconfiguration of the life story narrative (Crossley, 2000; Jackson, 2002; Neimeyer et al., 2010). As those narratives are shared beyond individual levels, as will be discussed in the next section, they help form a shared narrative of individuals having similar change experiences, and thus stabilize and give resilience to specific social representations within a community while resisting others (Jovchelovitch, 2012). These collective spaces then support individuals to overcome the social and material constraints of a given social setting (Zittoun el al., 2013). These different resources and processes do not change the rupture events, but they affect our perspective of them, and shape our agency and resilience in adaptation. However, as basic as these resources may seem, they are not always available to help a person adapt through change. While most people manage to reconstruct meaning after change and loss, some struggle to make sense of and adapt through the change, and some struggle with traumatic ruptures that require external interventions. In addition, the meaning making process and the resources facilitating it (such as imagination, narratives, and social support) vary among individuals. Imagination for example is not always possible; in some conditions people feel that they are in too much danger or under too much pressure to adventure beyond what is (Zittoun el al., 2013). Challenges also occur when change shakes several spheres of our lives simultaneously. When change happens in one sphere of experience (for example in the personal life, the family, the professional life, or the social), we rely on continuity in other spheres in our transition and adaptation throughout the change. However, these personal ruptures often are a consequence of social ruptures (such as unemployment in an economic crisis or loss of a loved one in times of war), leading to greater sense of uncertainty and loss of control over the situation (Zittoun et al., 2013). Though in this section we talk about individual processes of experiencing and adapting through change, it by no means suggests that this is an individual independent process that is not facilitated or hindered by social structures and social factors such as injustice and inequality. Adapting through change should not be seen as an isolated personal matter, but one that is interrelated with different social pressures and resistance to those pressures. The work of Krzesni and Coulombe (2020) in this volume helps us shed light on the social structural pressures that impose alienation on individuals, particularly marginalized individuals, and how society is failing those who experience alienation. Here, lack of well-being and adaptation

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is seen as resulting from structural injustice and social oppression rather than from any personal deficit. As the authors show, social factors such as inequality and oppression are not given enough attention in contemporary neoliberal discourses about happiness and wellbeing. Those discourses are described as having a position of privilege, and consider well-being, happiness, and adaptation through change as personal choices, equally available for everyone, independent of social factors, social class, and access to resources. Even though injustice must be structurally addressed at the social level, Krzesni and Coulombe (2020) emphasize that there is also a need to look at the well-being of those most immediately and severely suffering at the individual level. They argue that there is a need to address the consequences of the social factors on the individual level of well-being. Moreover, through working on projects that promote these individuals’ well-being, there could also be possibilities towards transformative social change. Marginalized communities are the most prone to lower well-being due to inequality, social pressures, and stereotypes in the dominant culture. One process that the authors highlight as essential to those individuals’ well-being and adaptation is resistance. Here resistance is seen as a form of adaptation and meaning making to reconcile well-being. Resistance could be achieved through individuals acting collectively to resist the oppressive conditions that are impacting their lives. Acts of resistance could be engaging in non-normative behaviors with the intent to critique social oppression (Case & Hunter, 2012). These acts of resistance enable individuals to achieve adaptation through a shared community. A community through which “counterspaces” are created that enable individuals to have shared meaning making processes that reconcile their identities and challenge dominant oppressive discourses (Case & Hunter, 2012). EXPERIENCING CHANGE AS A COMMUNITY Whether we experience a personal life changing event such as the death of a loved one or a shared event of social change such as a war, there is always something shared in our experiences with others who have experienced similar events. And the different resources we use at the individual level such as meaning making, imagination, and narratives can be facilitated within a group of people that share similar experiences. Gonzalez (2020) gives an example of how those personal meaning making process become collective within new spaces and new identity groups. She shows how feminist activists advocating for reproductive and sexual rights in Argentina mobilized themselves through creating common spaces of solidarity. Those spaces allowed them to share their personal life

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trajectories and the challenges they faced with regards to reproductive and sexual rights. Through sharing, a community with a new shared identity was created, one that makes meaning of those challenges not only on the personal level, but also on the shared and political, collective level. This shared collective identity informs the basic definition of the constitution of social movements: informal networks of interaction among a plurality of individuals and groups, engaged in political or cultural conflict based on shared collective identities, and gathered around the purpose of transformation and social change (Della Porta & Diani, 2015). It was through the participation through a group membership that activists could see a hybridization between I and We, and between the personal and political sphere (Gonzalez, 2020). Gonzalez (2020) highlights how the trajectories of women in this activist group were brought together through gatherings that the women arranged in public spaces. Here, women were able to share their trajectories and feel part of a group. Through the participation in these events the I became a We, and the trajectories were transformed from the particular to the general, creating a shared collective identity of a community. In this process, we see the individual meaning making as intertwined with new meanings created collectively in the participation within the group, and we see the personal challenges in a person’s trajectory transformed into a collective challenge that needs to be resisted through advocacy. These collective spaces of meaning making are further highlighted by Tagaki’s (2020) research on residents’ meetings for municipal welfare policy with regards to disability in Yao City in Japan. The resident meetings are conceived as a place for the development of new identities, where residents could establish new meanings that strengthen the community’s relationships. Tagaki shows the potential in those community spaces to construct a common experience of belonging and solidarity in spite of individual differences. Similar to Gonzalez’s (2020) example, those places facilitated the transition of what was perceived as individual challenges, into collective and political shared meanings about these challenges, and the ways through which those challenges could be overcome collectively. However, for this participation and group process of meaning making to happen, a group does not have to be in physical presence. For example, the “Me Too” awareness movement against sexual harassment relied mainly on online communication and the construction of its collective meaning relied on many individuals, who never met, coming forth with their personal life stories online. As Andersen and Lybæk (2020) show, the magnitude of the #MeToo momentum relied on an imagined community that shared personal experience of sexual harassment or support to the cause. Imagined community is a term coined by Anderson (2006) to describe communities that are formed through reciprocal belief about a community, rather than

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a physical sense of face-to-face relatedness. Andersen and Lybæk here emphasize how the transition from individual to group, from personal stories to group identity and solidarity, was mediated using the #MeToo sign on social media and utilizing the online space for the development of the movement. Bjerre (2020) further elaborates that for individual meaning making to become part of a collective, it does not only need a space and verbal communication like in the two previous examples, but also needs a shared understanding of affective and embodied experiences. In Bjerre’s research on meaning making processes within the community of social workers, she shows that the verbal sharing of experiences and meaning making processes of individual social workers among each other in the work environment is not enough to be able to collectively find solutions to help families and children at risk. She shows how a community of social workers navigates complex cases and negotiates them within the professional community using emotional and embodied practices. As Bjerre (2020) highlights, the social workers are able to understand and share each other’s experiences through a community space that affords a “cultural affective niche” (Brinkmann & Kofod, 2018), a space where there is scaffolding and enactment of their emotions in the field. This space is essential to facilitate meaning making processes that are beyond what can be expressed verbally. A space that supports affective and embodied shared meanings and a space that affords newly reconstructed stories through the togetherness of the community. FROM EXPERIENCING CHANGE TO CREATING CHANGE Having explored processes of experiencing change, and the making meaning of such change at the individual level and the shared group-level, I now look at those individuals and groups as they attempt to create change in the wider society. Moscovici’s (1976) work on minority influence is useful here to reflect on bottom-up change and on how minority groups can influence opinions in a society. While the focus of classical social psychology has been mostly on the conformity of the minority to the majority or the obedience of groups to authority, it is important to pay more attention to processes, such as those of minority influence, through which individuals and minorities can have the capacity to influence social change (Awad, 2018). Minority influence refers to the process by which a minority of a population manages to persuade the majority to accept their views, resulting in a change in the public attitudes, beliefs, or behaviours. It is this kind of influence that social movements seek in order to shape public opinion about different issues.

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Moscovici and Nemeth’s (1974) work on minority influence highlights different factors through which minorities manage to convert the majority’s opinions and achieve public acceptance of new views and behaviors. These factors are behavioral style, style of thinking, flexibility, and identification. An influential minority behavioral style would constitute that the minority must be consistent in their opinion, confident in the views that they are advocating for. They must appear to be unbiased and resist social pressures for conformity. The style of thinking refers to the ability of the minority to present valid arguments that trigger debates in a society. Consistent and valid arguments are not enough however; a minority should be able to show flexibility and compromise in their introduction of new ideas to the society. And finally, a minority through which the majority can relate and identify with is more likely to be able to influence public opinion. Going back to the case studies presented in the different chapters of this section of the volume, we can clearly appreciate some of these factors. In the case of the feminist group in Argentina (Gonzalez, 2020), the women were able to create change and modify oppressive social and historical conditions through maintaining a consistent and confident message as a community in resistance to social pressures and abuses. We can also see the factor of the style of thinking in Andersen and Lybæk’s (2020) analysis of the #MeToo movement. They showed how the hashtag as a sign had a certain semiotic and logical influence that triggered the receivers to position themselves inside or outside the logical grouping of the movement and its core argument about sexual harassment. Another factor of minority influence is flexibility and compromise. To create change, one needs to connect with and respond to current understandings and norms. If a minority group confronts the society with totally foreign ideas that are in opposition with all established norms, then they would be fast rejected because the majority would find it hard to identify with the minority and their views. This challenge is commonly seen in intervention programs that are implemented by international development organizations in local communities, without taking the local knowledge and norms into account. Amofah (2020) shows how those expert minority organizations attempts to convert a community’s ways of living, often result in tensions and conflicts when there is no proper communication and trust between the external actors and the local community. CONCLUDING THOUGHTS I have used the experience of change as a main thread throughout my comment to reflect on the dynamic relationships of how social changes influence individual’s lives, and how individuals and communities in return

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create social change. The focus has been on the different processes by which change is navigated. This thread brings together the different processes of change manifest in the different case studies in the current book, and also supports an overall emphasis on change as a dynamic process happening in between individuals, groups, and societies, thus looking at the potential of change as a bottom up as well as a top down process. The processes discussed support the understanding of individuals as flexible and active agents, who persistently search for meanings and resources in their communities to restore consistency and transform from one point in time to the next. The personal and collective meaning making processes do not only help us navigate our culture, but they are the processes by which cultures are produced and reproduced, and the process by which transforming our social world becomes possible. REFERENCES Amofah, S. (2020). Maneuvering around conflicts between international development NGOs and local communities towards poverty alleviation in Ghana. In F. van Alphen & S. Normann (Eds.), Cultural psychology in communities: Tensions and transformations. Information Age Publishing. Andersen, A. A., & Lybæk, N. S. K. (2020). The performative momentum of the hashtag. An examination of the #metoo movement. In F. van Alphen & S. Normann (Eds.), Cultural psychology in communities: Tensions and transformations. Information Age Publishing. Anderson, B. (2006). Imagined communities. Verso. Awad, S. H. (2018). From a social psychology of obedience and conformity to that of agency and social change. In R. L. Miller & A. Martinez (Eds.). Teaching tips: A compendium of conference presentations on teaching, 2016-17. Society for the Teaching of Psychology. Awad, S. H. (2016). The identity process in times of ruptures: Narratives from the Egyptian revolution (Special Issue: Prefigurative Politics). Social and Political Psychology, 4, 128–141. Bartlett, F. C. (1932). Remembering: A study in experimental and social psychology. Cambridge University Press. Bjerre, L. S. (2020). Meaning making processes in a professional community of social workers. In F. van Alphen & S. Normann (Eds.), Cultural psychology in communities: Tensions and transformations. Information Age Publishing. Breakwell, G. M. (1986). Coping with threatened identities. Methuen. Brinkmann, S., & Kofod, E. H. (2018). Grief as an extended emotion. Culture and Psychology, 24(2), 160–173. Case, A. D., & Hunter, C. D. (2012). Counterspaces: a unit of analysis for understanding the role of settings in marginalized individuals’ adaptive responses to oppression. American Journal of Community Psychology, 50(1–2), 257–270.

158  S. H. AWAD Crossley, M. L. (2000). Narrative Psychology, trauma and the study of self/identity. Theory & Psychology, 10(4), 527–546. Della Porta, D., & Diani, M. (2015). The Oxford Handbook of Social Movements. Oxford University Press. Durkheim, E. (1951). Suicide: A study in sociology. The Free Press. (Original work published 1897) Gonzalez, M. F. (2020). Constituting childbirth activism in Argentina: A study of place, identity and emotions. In F. van Alphen & S. Normann (Eds.), Cultural psychology in communities: Tensions and transformations. Information Age Publishing. Herrmann, R. K., Isernia, P., & Segatti, P. (2009). Attachment to the nation and international relations: Dimensions of identity and their relationship to war and peace. Political Psychology, 30(5), 721–754. Jackson, M. (2002). The politics of storytelling: Violence, transgression, and intersubjectivity (Vol. 3). Museum Tusculanum Press. Jahoda, M. (1982). Employment and unemployment: A social-psychological analysis. Cambridge University Press. Jovchelovitch, S. (2012). Narrative, memory and social representations: A conversation between history and social psychology. Integrative psychological and behavioral science, 46(4), 440–456. Krzesni, D., & Coulombe, S. (2020). Restoration of purpose: A goal focused approach to cultural transformation and wellbeing promotion among marginalized communities. In F. van Alphen & S. Normann (Eds.), Cultural psychology in communities: Tensions and transformations. Information Age Publishing. Moscovici, S. (1976). Social influence and social change. Academic Press. Moscovici, S., & Nemeth, C. (1974). Social influence II: Minority influence. In C. Nemeth (Ed.), Social psychology: Classic and contemporary integrations. Rand McNally. Neimeyer, R. A., Burke, L. A., Mackay, M. M., & Van Dyke Stringer, J. G. (2010). Grief therapy and the reconstruction of meaning: From principles to practice. Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, 40(2), 73–83. Parker, I. (1991). Discourse dynamics: Critical analysis for social and individual psychology. SAGE. Salvatore, S., & Valsiner, J. (2010). Idiographic science on its way: Towards making sense of psychology. Yearbook of Idiographic Science, 2, 9–19. Tagaki, M. (2020). Making meaning of disability in residents’ meetings for municipal welfare policy. In F. van Alphen & S. Normann (Eds.), Cultural psychology in communities: Tensions and transformations. Information Age Publishing. Wagoner, B. (2017). The constructive mind: Frederic Bartlett’s psychology in reconstruction. Cambridge University Press. Valsiner, J. (2003). Beyond social representations: A theory of enablement. Papers on Social Representations, 12, 7.1–7.16. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Harvard University Press. Zittoun, T., Valsiner, J., Salgado, J., Gonçalves, M. M., Vedeler, D., & Ferring, D. (2013). Human development in the life course: Melodies of living. Cambridge University Press.

SECTION II MEANING MAKING IN BETWEEN DIFFERENT COMMUNITIES

CHAPTER 9

RECOGNITION AS A CATALYST FOR AGENCY Experiences From an Intercultural Art Project for Young People Hildegunn Marie T. Seip

In an age of unprecedented migration, growing up across multiple communities is increasingly common. Still, children and youth with culturally complex backgrounds—migrants themselves, or with parents who have migrated or married across borders—often find themselves in between or on the margins of cultural categorizations and in a minority position as “different.” On their way towards adulthood, they negotiate between expectations and values from different contexts. Their development is shaped by these different influences, but even more by how they are received and acknowledged in their communities and by their own active participation. When these young people succeed with their developmental projects, it can both strengthen their own well-being and be of great value to society. Participatory, creative projects have a potential for contributing to the empowerment of young people with culturally complex backgrounds. The aim of this study is to find out what participating in an intercultural creative

Cultural Psychology in Communities: Tensions and Transformations, pp. 161–183 Copyright © 2020 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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community means to the participants. A supportive community may help minority youth navigate a world where much of their fate seems governed by macro politics, intergroup dynamics, and the categorizations of others. In this chapter, I explore how young people experience participating in an intercultural art project and how those experiences impact their everyday lives. I present an interpretative phenomenological analysis of interviews with participants in Kaleidoscope, an art project in Norway where young people from different countries share their songs and dances. How do the ways they get involved in this help them develop their own voice? Rather than looking at how the Kaleidoscope project mobilizes them to create a vibrant performance, I focus on the agency of the participants themselves. That is, I study how they actively make use of the opportunities offered to them to navigate while growing up across cultural categories. RESEARCH CONTEXT While global migration is a defining characteristic of our time, the felt consequences of migration are very unequally distributed. Migrants, especially in forced migration and from poorer countries, often face challenges to inclusion in host countries. In Norway, children with immigrant backgrounds are almost seven times more likely to grow up in poverty than other children and the differences are increasing (Epland, 2018). Young people (15–29 years) born abroad are twice as likely as their Norwegian-born peers to be outside of education, employment, or training (OECD, 2018). Social, cultural, educational, and economic marginalization are risk factors that threaten the well-being and constructive participation of youth with migrant backgrounds. This is also the case in a generally wealthy and egalitarian country such as Norway, where integration is an explicit state policy. Social support and school functioning, on the other hand, are protective factors that can “level the field” (Fazel et al., 2012; Oppedal et al., 2008). Encouragingly, second-generation immigrant youth with good school and community relations are not at greater risk for developing emotional and conduct problems than non-immigrant peers (Noam et al., 2014). An increasing proportion of young people with minority backgrounds attend higher education, which is an important strategy for resisting marginalization. While first-generation immigrants attend higher education less, children of immigrant parents are more likely to study there than the population at large (Tungesvik, 2019). Growing up with multiple cultures can be an enrichment as much as a challenge, depending on how these children are received by their communities (Salole, 2018). The term “culture” is an elusive concept. It is often used as if cultures were static and easily definable entities, within

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which persons live their lives (Valsiner, 2014). It would be more accurate, however, to consider how people participate in different communities that facilitate unique patterns of learning experiences. While some discard the concept of culture altogether, I seek to apply it in a dynamic sense that avoids reification, while encompassing relevant practices and processes of meaning-making. This approach is intended to bridge a cultural psychological understanding—often deeply ambivalent to the term ‘culture’ due to its pitfalls (Valsiner, 2019)—with the language use of the interviewees in this study, who apparently consider culture a (social) reality in their experiential worlds. In this vein, I approach culture as ways of relating to the world and others, according to internalized repertoires, based on our experiences from social environments through the life course (Schuff, 2018). In common-sense language use, the word ‘culture’ is often used for categorization. Cultures as labels (e.g. “I’m a proud Norwegian-Congolese”) refer to socially recognized cultural differences. Rather than referring to actual cultural entities, this labeling can be understood as boundary work. In his classical anthropological work, Fredrik Barth explains ethnicity as the social organization of cultural difference. The point of interest is then “the ethnic boundary that defines the group, not the cultural stuff that it encloses” (Barth, 1998, p. 15). The “boundary game” of categorizing becomes most noticeable in encounters where we see each other as “others,” in intercultural contact (Dahl et al., 2006). Paradoxically, intercultural settings meant to celebrate diversity can often reinforce the exact categories/stereotypes they set out to prove irrelevant. Children that grow up influenced by multiple cultures experience crosscultural childhoods (Salole, 2018)—or, given caveats about the term “culture,” cross-categorical childhoods. Links to differing communities may provide an expanded repertoire of meaning-making resources, such as multilingualism. Still, othering and conflicting demands from different communities (e.g., family, neighborhood, school) can complicate their development trajectories. While more research on growing up cross-culturally or cross-categorically would be welcomed (Salole, 2018), current knowledge points to a potential for research-based prevention and promotion rooted in local communities. Oppedal et al. (2008, p. 45) suggest that such interventions be based on what we know about the importance of relations and coping skills. An international literature review indicates that school and community-based interventions for refugee and asylum-seeking children can help them overcome difficulties associated with forced migration (Tyrer & Fazel, 2014). Both verbal processing and creative arts interventions significantly reduced difficulties. Contextually tailored interventions are necessary to address the range of experiences of children impacted by migration.

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In Norway, a study of an expressive arts intervention with unaccompanied minor asylum-seeking children found positive results (DeMott et al., 2017). Participation in a trauma-informed expressive arts group shortly after arrival helped refugee boys cope and contributed to higher life satisfaction and more hope than in the control group. Providing a safe space, opportunities for creative, body-based expressions and social connection proved beneficial. From a broader prevention/promotion perspective, not only healthcare interventions are of interest, but also community initiatives that offer similar creative and relational spaces. Current public policies in Norway and internationally, emphasize prevention/promotion (Hauger, 2018; Prilleltensky, 2005) theoretically founded in health and community psychology. Still, we need studies of specific approaches to translate theory into practice—and back. One such approach is Kaleidoscope (“Fargespill” in Norwegian), a creative project in which different cultural backgrounds are considered resources. Children and youth with nonmajority backgrounds are invited, mainly through schools and refugee reception systems, to share songs and dances from their cultures of origin. Throughout a school year, this musical raw material is refined into a professional performance and presented at a local concert hall. Kaleidoscope originated in Bergen in 2004 and has since spread to several Norwegian and Swedish towns. The initiators underline that it is an art project rather than a social project. Nevertheless, anecdotes indicate that participants’ self-confidence and well-being may improve (cf. the project’s self-presentation, Hamre et al., 2011). There are no studies of possible benefits of Kaleidoscope participation so far. Academic interest in the project has mainly come from the field of music, where it has been analyzed as a cultural expression—in critical terms, a “reassuring story white Norwegians tell themselves about multicultural Norway” (Solomon, 2016, p. 188)—and as hybrid music practices (Kvaal, 2018). In the current study, I try to move closer to the voices of the participants instead, so that other stories than the majoritarian one can broaden our understanding. THEORETICAL APPROACHES The study of people in communities acknowledges that individuals live embedded in connections and interactions with other humans. Communities are understood as clusters of relationships that matter to us over some time. Communities develop shared identifications, including “common symbol systems, shared values and norms, mutual influence, common interests, and joint commitment to meeting shared needs” (Collins et al.,

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2018, p. 6). The Kaleidoscope project forms such communities, interacting through the year in local music halls. As I analyzed my conversations with participants, I chose recognition and agency as theoretical foci, since these phenomena were involved in many statements and stories. Recognition, the ascription of positive status to an individual or group, can take different forms: love, respect for rights and esteem (Honneth, 1996). Central in human interaction on both micro and macro levels, recognition has been considered a universal need. Recognition can be external or internal: for what someone does or for who they are. It plays out in attachment, subject-subject-relationships and is necessary for growth and development: “Others must recognize me for me to develop as an individual” (Schibbye & Løvlie, 2017, p. 49). Falkum et al. (2011) mirror Honneth’s categories when they elaborate on the psychology of social recognition. While the need for recognition in close relationships has been given ample attention in psychology, less has been said about two other important forms of recognition: legal recognition (ascription of legal status and human rights) and social confirmation (e.g., appreciation for work). Being recognized as a unique individual, a person equal to others and for what one contributes, strengthens a developing human being. The full importance of intersubjective recognition is distinctly experienced only when recognition is denied (Falkum et al., 2011). So, while we all seek recognition, it is particularly vital to minorities, who often face discrimination, minority stress (Chryssochoou, 2004) and internalized oppression (David, 2014). During analysis, my interest turned to how recognition strengthens agency, the individual’s ability and opportunity to act (Jansen, 2013, p. 58). The experience of having or lacking agency is closely linked to empowerment/disempowerment, psychologically significant phenomena that impact health and well-being (Laverack, 2006). METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH I set out to explore Kaleidoscope based on a cultural psychological understanding of humans as meaning-making participants in communities and active agents in their own development (Jansen & Andenæs, 2019). A community can matter, not as a ‘cause’ for change, but rather as a catalyst (Cabell & Valsiner, 2014), playing into the open system moving through time that is the human being. In the following, I present an interpretative phenomenological analysis of interviews with Kaleidoscope participants. The material is part of a PhD study with three forms of data collection: participatory observation, interviews, and a survey. Within a sequential mixed methods design, a

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first stage of participatory observation formed the basis for the interviews, which in turn informed the development of a survey for multiple locations. The mixed data were gathered to study the impact of Kaleidoscope participation. In the present analysis, this is explored in the participants’ own accounts. Participants Ten interviewees were recruited from two different locations, which I will call Oldtown and Newtown. In Oldtown, Kaleidoscope had been running for over a decade and the interviewees (here referred to as “veterans”) had several years of Kaleidoscope experience. In Newtown, the project had a history of two years and the interviewees (here, “beginners”) naturally had less experience. After visits and observations, I invited all Newtown participants older than 14 to be interviewed. With those who volunteered, I conducted one pilot interview and seven regular interviews. Seeking out veterans with more experience, I also recruited three interviewees in Oldtown. The beginners’ fresh impressions complemented the veterans’ more thorough, long-term reflection. Among the 10 interviewees were seven girls and three boys, 15 to 28 years old. They were from ten different countries in Central Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin-America, and Europe. Only one was born in Norway. Three had come to Norway alone: two were unaccompanied refugee minors, one came to study. Four came with family and two were adopted at the age of 3 and 10. This range of backgrounds reflects the loose recruitment criteria in Kaleidoscope, where any background considered cross-cultural is interesting. Some Norwegians are also included, for example through schools. The interviewees had between three months and nine years of Kaleidoscope experience. Data Collection I conducted semistructured interviews with the Newtown participants. The interview guide was developed from observations, in dialogue with a reference group of experienced project participants. In addition to questions about the participants’ lives and Kaleidoscope experiences, the interview included two card exercises. The first was identity mapping (Märtsin, 2010), where participants placed sticky notes with keywords in relation to their name, according to how much they identified with them (strong, vulnerable, angry, safe, creative, etc.). The second exercise was the Sources of Meaning Card Method (la Cour & Schnell, 2016), where participants chose between

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statements about possible sources of meaning (e.g., “I embrace challenges,” “My religion gives me strength”). While these exercises were helpful with the beginners, I found that the veterans needed less prompting. I therefore decided to let the Oldtown interviews have a more open format, inviting them to tell their stories freely and reflect upon what participation meant to them. The interviews lasted from 36 minutes (beginner) to 104 minutes (veteran). The interviewees chose the interview language (mostly Norwegian, one chose Spanish). One interviewee brought a friend to translate, resulting in a mix of Norwegian/English/a third language through the lay translator, herself a former participant. The interviews were recorded, transcribed1 and imported into NVivo software for analysis, along with notes and photos of the card exercises. Analytical Strategies I applied an interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), designed to explore how participants are making sense of their personal and social world. Informed by phenomenology and hermeneutics, IPA gives the participants’ own understandings center stage. In the words of IPA pioneers Smith et al. (2009, p. 36), the method combines hermeneutics of empathy with hermeneutics of questioning. I apply IPA within a contextualist approach, seeking to “acknowledge the ways individuals make meaning of their experience, and, in turn, the ways the broader social context impinges on those meanings” (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 81). The practical analytical steps, adapted from Smith et al. (2009), included transcription, coding, recoding, and organizing codes and notes into patterns through an abductive process. Reflexivity and Ethical Reflections My own experiences across national borders and languages, volunteer work with refugees and involvement in music and dance motivated this study, as well as my academic experience within intercultural communication, cultural, and community psychology. I recognize that this may make me more inclined towards the hermeneutics of empathy than those of questioning. Therefore, I have tried to contextualize and critically nuance my analysis, discussing it with supervisors, colleagues, and the reference group of experienced Kaleidoscope participants. I conducted the current IPA analysis within a contextualist and participatory approach (cf. Collins et al., 2018; Nelson & Prilleltensky, 2010), attempting to understand human development and meaning-making in

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the context of how our life worlds are continually interwoven with the fabric of society. These perspectives encourage a methodological humility and flexibility when trying to listen to the voices of potentially marginalized “others”—recognizing both our commonalities and differences and never taking for granted that my planned methods make sense in encounters with participants (Lindner, 2001). These are ethical as well as methodological issues. While it would be naïve to think that power differences and positionality could be tended by methodological remedies, I have sought to involve the participants in the process as much as possible, through the reference group as well as informal dialogues. Combining different data collection strategies, I sought to carefully listen to the voices of the participants, while considering their circumstances and projects (cf. Goodkind & Deacon, 2004). It therefore became important to adapt the sample and strategies in the course of the study. The project is approved by the Privacy Ombudsman for Research at Norwegian Social Science Data Services (NSD) and follows their recommendations for informed consent and confidentiality.2 Beyond that, the ethical baseline of the project is respect and care for the young participants, with the explicit intention that their voices be heard (cf. Nelson & Prilleltensky, 2010). The participants have been assigned fictitious names: the veterans names starting with a V, the beginners with a B. FINDINGS As I analyzed the interviews, an overarching theme was the participants’ experience of being met with recognition by welcoming leaders and the Kaleidoscope community—being seen as resourceful, cared for and supported. This creates a different space from what they are used to in their everyday lives, where they often feel different and even excluded. Here, they can safely navigate cultural differences, “be themselves,” be creative together and gradually establish their own voice. This space seemed a catalyst for positive change: from loneliness to inclusion, from frustration to more joy, fun, and creativity, and from nervousness to feeling confident and looking people in the eye. I have structured the analysis to present this as an organic process: how a community of recognition can create a different space—for cultural navigation, learning, growth and strengthened agency. A Community of Recognition Kaleidoscope is consistently described as a welcoming community, where participants were recognized as contributors from the start. The veterans

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seem to have adopted the discourse of the project leaders; quoting their philosophy that “everyone is a resource.” I have become much less vulnerable after joining Kaleidoscope. Because now I know that I am a resource ... I am not sort of a weakness to society. Or a burden, in a way. You know, like, I see it through everything we do in Kaleidoscope, and how much positive response we get. (Vanessa)

The participants’ first encounters with the project exemplify this welcoming experience. Vanessa heard them perform a song she knew from childhood and went straight to the leaders to join. It was very exciting. Because when I first joined Kaleidoscope, I was placed directly as a resource! And then it was like—what else do you know? Do you know a song about children? Do you know a dance about ... nomads? Do you know this, do you know that? Then I played this really important part, with them. (Vanessa)

Both veterans and beginners describe the Kaleidoscope community as “family.” Bianca says they are “like brothers and sisters,” and Vera says they “stick together no matter what.” The Newtown beginners particularly emphasized the importance of finding friends here: I have made a lot of good friends here. I didn’t really have a lot of, like, friends from before. I was bullied a whole lot in school, that was really why I dropped out. But after joining Kaleidoscope, then ... it’s really ... we all sort of have our background, but—all of us have kind of gone through a lot of the same things, bullying and exclusion and stuff like that, in school and our spare time and so on. So, I think we feel very confident that we can trust each other, and that we have good friends there, available, if anything comes up. (Bianca)

The relationships with the project leaders are also very important to the participants. In both towns, they speak of warm and supportive leaders that care beyond working hours. They can speak to them about “everything” and specific leaders have offered support through hard times, heartache, and conflicts with parents. “I was in a lot of pain,” Bea told me. “And when she just stood there and—like another adult, from another perspective, I needed that ... I am very attached to her.” An additional layer of recognition comes from the wider community, from family, friends and teachers in the audience, and people from their group of origin, appreciating how their culture is passed on. Vera describes her excitement when a music video with “her song” was broadcast on television in the country her family came from. “That feeling ... like, it’s not just

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Kaleidoscope, like Norway or Oldtown, but our whole people watched and were proud of it. That felt really good.” The acclaim they receive as participants in the project can add up to a sense of recognition in society. In Kaleidoscope, “I feel important in something,” Bita said. Bea emphasizes its importance in society: “I felt that this was an important performance to show. To show more people that we have crazy many cultures in Norway, which we just overlook ... I felt that I was part of something really important, that I did something really good.” Recognition Opens a Different Space With the multiple forms of recognition described above, Kaleidoscope creates as a “different space” for the participants, in which they can be themselves more freely. Many of them contrast their Kaleidoscope experiences with other areas of their lives: “Here, I didn’t have to speak perfect Norwegian, or be entirely Norwegian, I could just be myself ... I spent less energy on explaining myself,” Vanessa says. She continues: “Life was difficult at home.... In Kaleidoscope, I could unwind. And for two hours, I didn’t have to be ‘un-Norwegian.’ ” Bea and Bianca, who had experienced bullying, found a safer peer arena here. It was also different from school: Going to school was very … it was difficult, really. Because where I came from, I was one of the best students in class. And coming here—that was quite a transition. I felt it, sensed that I was the most stupid student in class.... And that process of learning everything over, like in kindergarten, was really exhausting. So, it was really fun for me to go and do something entirely different than what I needed to cram for or try to understand.... That was one of the first reasons that I wanted to be in Kaleidoscope: Because it was fun, and I didn’t ... it wasn’t like in school. There, I wasn’t the stupidest one. (Violette)

This experience of Kaleidoscope as a different space is also linked to the creative activities. The participants could dance and sing along no matter their verbal language skills. They felt energized by moving and creating together, towards a common goal. Vera tells me that she struggled with depression and this was recognized by her teachers and a therapist. In contrast, she calls Kaleidoscope her “happy place.” While she felt sad and conflicted at home, dropped out of school, and found limited help from the school psychologist, Kaleidoscope was the one place she kept going. The hardest part was getting out of bed. “But when you come here, then—they don’t give you the chance to be like sad and stuff like that. It.... They do everything they can for you to

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be happy again.” The shift from past to the present tense at this point in her narrative implies that this is ongoing: “I just felt—Kaleidoscope is my happy place. And home, school and all that, they are not.” Space for Active Navigation The space the project provides gives participants opportunities to safely navigate cultural differences, trying out ways to be themselves in a complex social world. The veterans display self-confidence as they playfully manage stereotypes, laughing at themselves and sharing experiences of misunderstandings and understanding between people from different backgrounds. While acknowledging that cultures sometimes “clash,” they also play with categories, stating for example that the (Norwegian) leaders are “as African as us.” The participants engage in active navigation between their different cultural references. Vera describes her mother as strict and worried about her becoming “too Norwegian,” and contrasts this with her own active balancing: “No cultures are perfect. So, you can take what you think is wrong. But you can take what is right, too. So, that is what I do with both cultures.” This experienced participant shows flexibility, perspectivity, and frames her multiple cultural belongings as a competency. To legitimize abstinence from alcohol among peers, she could refer to her culture of origin, as a tool for her to choose what she wants. This strategic use of her cultural references is a telling example of how living with multiple cultures can be an expansion. The interaction between different perspectives in a safe space also facilitates cooperative creativity. Mixing music and dances from different traditions is mainly a positive experience and often turns out “surprisingly cool,” as Badih described it. Violette was nervous to share a song that she had learned in a refugee camp, because it was from a neighboring country considered the greatest enemy of her home country. She worried about what others would think. “But it turned out so beautiful! Better than I ever expected ... almost all the world on stage, and singing and wishing and dancing for peace. The ultimate highlight.” She is still unable to perform this song without crying. Bogdan mentions a similarly transcending moment, backstage: “Two minutes before the performance, we joined together in a circle and prayed together, Christians, Muslims, all of us. The initiative came from one of the Norwegian kids. Standing there in the circle, I felt: look, we are the same.” To him, this was an example of how Kaleidoscope has made the world “a slightly better place,” most of all through what it did to the participants.

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These moments of togetherness are central to the Kaleidoscope story, but the creative processes are not friction-free. The most common frustration was that others came late to rehearsals, did not show up, or did not take it seriously enough. These are understandable frustrations when group members depend on each other to reach a goal. Differing ambitions and approaches could also lead to what a veteran referred to as “cultural clashes.” She underlined that they had learned a lot about accepting differences through dialogue over the years and that the leaders had gotten better at handling these issues and keeping the order. While emotions like anger and frustration were part of the process, the majority expressed that their joy, creativity, and confidence had been strengthened while participating. There are, however, also conflicting experiences and views among participants, which may not be fully explored or respected within a harmonizing approach to recognition. Space for Learning and Confidence Most participants say that Kaleidoscope has taught them a lot (music, language, “cultural stuff ”) and broadened their perspectives. Badih explained how he matured: I was not really serious to begin with. After a while I just thought, wow, this turned out to be serious stuff, you know.... So, I thought that one shouldn’t just mess around ... I sit towards the end and think, oh ... I should have taken it more seriously ... and it turned out quite alright, actually. (Badih)

After he finished school and his father passed away, Badih quit Kaleidoscope to work and provide for his family abroad. He appears more tired and quiet during the interview than when we met in the project. He says he is “brokenhearted,” but cherishes memories and lessons learned in Kaleidoscope. The veterans have reflected more on specific skills and values they have learned over the years. Some of them have become project assistants and they see participation in the project as a good reference for future work opportunities—“so, Kaleidoscope can help you with everything,” Vera says. Their self-confidence and interpersonal skills have also improved: When we started singing, it was, like … when you are from my country, and you are with a grownup, you don’t look them straight in the eye—what you do is you look down. If you look them straight in the eyes, it’s disrespectful. So, like, singing that song, I was down here ... and the leader was just like, “look at me, up here!” And she made me look up. (Vera)

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At first, Vera found it scary to sing on stage, but the leaders encouraged her, and when she started singing, she forgot her surroundings and got “a really great feeling.” Kaleidoscope is really important, because—first of all, you present yourself, like, who you are.... And secondly, it actually helps you get the contact you want with people. Because when you are on stage you look straight on to, like, up at the audience to look at them.... And that has helped me a lot at school, too, when I have presentations and stuff.... It has really helped my self-confidence. Not just in singing, but standing up for myself as well. That is why I don’t want to quit Kaleidoscope ... it is a big part of me. (Vera)

Space for Agency—Being and Becoming Oneself Several participants talk about “being themselves.” In this welcoming space, they do not have to explain themselves, conform to exclusive categorizations or be more or less Norwegian: I feel I can be myself. Like, absolutely myself. I don’t feel I have to … I am very silly. (laughs]) But like, they are really nice that way, because we can joke around, and then be serious again, so … I can be myself. And that’s really important to me. (Bita)

Most clearly, the veterans display increasingly pronounced agency and voice their opinions and positions. Long-term participants present Kaleidoscope as integrated into their own selves, like Vera when she explained that the project is “part of her.” The conflicting projects of parents and project leaders have been a source of great frustration to Vanessa. The Kaleidoscope leaders were pursuing their creative project, valued her contributions and wanted her to feel free to participate and express herself. Her mother, on the other hand, wanted her to grow up to be a decent young woman in terms of their country of origin, and did not find it appropriate for her to sing and dance with boys present. Vanessa’s own project was initially to not disappoint either party: So, I was just like standing there—no, I can’t quit, but I want to quit, but... It was really tiring…. It was hard, because one day there was an Eid party, and she saw me outside the concert hall, and she just like: “Are you here? I thought you were at home!” And I couldn’t go back in, right, because she said “come home right away”.… But then the leader came and said, “come back in, you can’t really leave.” Then I was angry at both her and my mother. (Vanessa)

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There have been attempts at dialogue between the leaders and the parent, who even saw the performance and liked it—but still thought someone other than her daughter should do it. So, what to do? “It was solved by me, just—that I confront my mother, in a way. And tell her that I choose this. That I have to be in Kaleidoscope. I’ll die without Kaleidoscope. (laughs)” This may seem like a strangely simple solution, but was the outcome of a process over time, where the participant moved from ambiguity to a clarity about her own wishes, while her right to make her own choices was supported in Kaleidoscope. The relevant recognition here is in the fact that the group leader recognizes the girl’s right to self-determination. Vera, who had struggled with depression, also appreciates “being herself ”: I am at home, depressed, in bed. I have dropped out of school. But the only thing I couldn’t stop doing, was to quit Kaleidoscope. Because when I come here, I am myself. Like, I am the happy girl that I am ... and who likes to dance and sing and who does everything she can to make her everyday life better. But when I am at home, I am another girl, who is depressed, who doesn’t know what she wants to do in life, and things like that. (Vera)

To her, Kaleidoscope became the place where she felt that she could return to her most genuine self. The depressed state is externalized to “another girl,” of whom she speaks in the third person. Finding that Kaleidoscope allowed her to become who she is, so to speak, she recommends it to others: So, I feel, like—if those who are depressed or sick try to join Kaleidoscope—they don’t even have to join the singing or dancing, but just join rehearsals, and see how they treat each other. I think that would, like, help. Like, it helped me. It gives you such hope—that life will, you will like not just, when you are depressed, for instance—you will not stay in that spot forever. Life goes on, and after a while you will manage, too. (Vera)

Through a process where she was supported over time, she found her way back to “herself ”—and forward to increased self-confidence and a clearer agency, also on important arenas in her life. Others had decided on school programs for her earlier, but she hated it and dropped out. She has now finally chosen her own studies: “Since I got to Norway, Kaleidoscope and this high school program are the only choices I have made, and that I— really liked.” Violette has also developed a distinct voice over her years in the project. Now a college student, she is not afraid to respond to academics analyzing Kaleidoscope. Representing the project at a conference, she heard Solomon (2016, cf. above) present his analysis of Kaleidoscope as a majoritarian mode of representation, where the minorities are exotic props orchestrated by ethnic Norwegian artistic leaders. She begs to differ:

Recognition as a Catalyst   175 If I see something I don’t like, I will say so right away. (laughs) That’s also why I reacted when he criticized Kaleidoscope. I feel that he really sees us participants as very stupid, and we need help, and he will come and save us, in a way. (Violette)

She has not only heard him speak, but also read his article and discussed with him in person: I actually didn’t know how important recognition was before reading that article. From that time, I see for instance all the time and energy I put into this, and the knowledge I put into the project—that is all just set aside, and all the acclaim given to others. As if.... They are credited both for their part and my part. I feel that—it is just wrong. Because if there was something that the Kaleidoscope leaders did that was wrong, I would have let them know, like, right away. I raise my voice all the time. (Violette)

While explicitly underlining the importance of recognition, Violette also demonstrates agency as she voices her own place in Kaleidoscope and objects to somebody else’s positioning. This level of autonomous reflection was most pronounced among the veterans. In sum, recognition opens a safe and creative space, for young people to navigate the different expectations and categorizations they encounter, and to develop their voice over time. DISCUSSION: FROM BURDEN TO RESOURCE TO AGENT The participants testify to how this community art project has helped them overcome difficulties associated with migration and exclusion, adding to the findings of Tyrer and Fazel (2014) that community-based interventions, including creative arts, could help migrant children. This case shows how such developmental support can be offered beyond the healthcare sector. Young people with minority backgrounds face the task of negotiating their developmental projects and developing their voice in a landscape with multiple culturally shaped expectations and values. Several Kaleidoscope participants have experienced diverging demands from their (minority) parents and the (majority) project leaders. Still, they have found ways to navigate the categories and expectations, actively making use of the recognition and opportunities offered in the project to resist and raise their own voice. Being welcomed, seen and heard, and recognized as resourceful—by leaders and friends, and through mechanisms built into the project—seems decisive for this growth. The project has established communities where the participants feel that they belong and can play an active part, elements of what Sarason (1974) called a sense of community. Recognition in community appears as

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a catalyst for agency and well-being. Returning to the distinctions between different forms of recognition outlined above, much of the recognition in the Kaleidoscope community might be considered external (achievementoriented). However, when participants express that people care about them as “themselves,” internal recognition is also in play. Both relational recognition and social confirmation were observed in Kaleidoscope—with less of the third kind—legal recognition. While the project has no authority to grant any legal status, every participant’s right to be listened to and respected is established in the Kaleidoscope ground rules (Hamre et al., 2011). However, a lack of legal recognition (in larger society) has sometimes torn participants out of the community. Some young asylum seekers have been deported from the country, in the middle of the creative process – to the dismay of peers and leaders (Schuff, 2015). While on a society level, minorities can experience the struggle for recognition as demanding, both symbolically and in realpolitik (cf. Honneth, 1996), in this creative community, recognition is more generously shared. The periodic competition for attention is friendlier and more inclusive, as the young participants actively negotiate their positions, with humor and creativity, sometimes competing for the center stage, but also cheering each other on. In practice, an emphasis on recognition can translate into “an appreciative approach,” a positive psychology method which has been successfully applied with youth at risk (Hauger & Mæland, 2015). This parallels the Kaleidoscope approach, which is explicitly resource-focused, and fits well with what the literature refers to as strength-based or asset-based approaches for change (Boyd & Bright, 2007). Within community psychology and public health, a strength-based approach has its roots in a salutogenic perspective, which implies turning our attention to what strengthens and builds health, rather than focusing on what leads to sickness and unhealth (Antonovsky, 1987). A ​ mong important factors in salutogenesis are a sense of coherence, meaning, belonging, participation, and coping (Langeland, 2014). Strength-based approaches are based on a belief in that all persons and communities have inherent resources that can be found and mobilized (Hauger, 2018). An explicit resource approach is positive, even if the language has somewhat instrumental undertones: as a resource, you are something that someone else (the project, society) can utilize. There is a potential paradox in praising participants for their contributions—while it is empowering for some, others may feel left out, or pressured to perform. A step beyond such external recognition of the other’s usefulness (cf. Schibbye & Løvlie, 2017) is to recognize the other as an agent, a voice to be reckoned with. While it is not as explicit as the recognition-as-resource, there is also potential for recognition-as-agent in the project, when participants can express themselves

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creatively with others and are encouraged to make their own choices. This helps counter the danger that recognition becomes one-dimensionally achievement-focused and instrumental. Participants who share experiences of lacking agency link their disempowerment to anger, a lack of self-confidence and even depression. In contrast, their emerging agency as they made more of their own choices, confronting others, and expressing themselves more clearly, coincides with relief, renewed joy, and increased confidence. The strengthened agency in the stories of the veterans is also reflected in how their developmental projects are more clearly articulated. The term developmental projects refers to how young people are actively engaged in their own development (Rogoff, 2003), negotiating within their environments what it means to grow older for them and thereby setting a direction for themselves (Omland & Andenas, 2017). The participants’ developmental projects include finding a place where they are welcomed and can contribute, balancing their cultures, getting an education and a job, and making friends—all preferably while having fun. They find support for several developmental projects in Kaleidoscope, where they can be “themselves” and express the complexity of that together. Significantly, several participants have used the support from the Kaleidoscope setting to find strength to do what they want, in what might be termed a developmental project of self-determination. One might wonder how these stories would have been told by their parents, as there are potential tensions between independence and interdependence. Yet, the participants in question have not lost contact with family, but have, over time, negotiated, confronted, and moved to a different position in relation to them. A participant explains that her mother has not budged in her skepticism to Kaleidoscope, but she herself is in a different place now. It is not all independence, either; there is a new interdependence in the Kaleidoscope community. This empowerment process is intersubjective—participants find their own voice through the support of others. In other words, there is an interaction between recognition and agency. Experiences of recognition seem to open a space for emerging self-determination, which is welcomed in the local context as well as in the Norwegian majority society, as in the case of the “shameless” Arabic girls, who fight for liberation from social control (Bile et al., 2017). Community and autonomy are not in opposition here, rather, they mutually constitute each other. A potential pitfall in the project is that the emphasis on cultures of origin can lead to stereotyping and reifying cultural differences (Schuff, 2016). The participants mainly accept the premise that they represent their background, but also laugh and joke with categories, and sometimes protest and negotiate the ways they are addressed and categorized within the project.

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This resistance, also in the form of jokes, should be taken seriously to avoid exotification. Mechanisms of categorization and simplified understandings of their “cultures” may disempower participants, reducing them to mere representatives of their backgrounds. In general, an awareness about letting participant voices be heard, also in less than choreographed ways, can serve as an antidote against implicit stereotyping. Taking participant voices seriously may also be the best response to the above-mentioned critique of Kaleidoscope, like when Violette objected to Solomon’s (2016) criticism. She claims due credit for her contribution, opposing Solomon’s interpretation. Her response reflects having grown accustomed to raising her voice. Arts and creativity may be a particularly fruitful breeding ground for practicing agency, since the arts can challenge categorical thinking in general, shift our perspectives and provide resistance against customary thinking and behavior. Herein lies much of its transformative potential (Chaudhary et al., 2017; Kilroy et al., 2007). The participants also voice their concerns from within the project, increasingly so over the years. In Oldtown, the veterans demanded to get participant representatives (“tillitsvalgte”), to negotiate participant rights and wishes with the leadership. Some veteran participants have become Kaleidoscope employees. These developments are positive in terms of empowerment and for the project to keep developing into an even more nuanced multicultural art project, as reviewers have called for (Paus, 2018). Another step in that direction is not only demanding traditional musical elements, but also allowing newer expressions written/composed/choreographed by the participants themselves. The latter was done in Newtown and, again, room for participant agency is key. Lastly, let us note that the endurance of the community over time is central to its participants. This lasting practical/relational framework enables participants to compare it to family. The importance of the time dimension is highlighted by the more substantial difference the community has made in the lives of the long-term participants (veterans). It took time for them to feel confident enough to voice their agency. In a day and age where short-term interventions and fast and efficient prevention/promotion programs are prioritized, a lesson here is that longer-term communities allow young people to grow over time with supportive and confident adults. There may not be shortcuts to lasting, community-anchored change. CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS The real magic happens when the participants are not only recognized as useful resources, but emerge as agents with loud and clear voices. Then they are not just “used” in the project, by the leaders, the cultural institution or

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even society at large, but they actively negotiate their way to voicing who they are and their own projects, hopes and dreams. They emerge as agents to be reckoned with, participants in cocreating something meaningful, something important—in these creative communities. A limitation of this research design is that it is not possible to conclude how much of the change described is due specifically to Kaleidoscope participation and how much is linked to general maturation and other factors. But rather than seeking causal explanations, I have looked for potential catalysts for change and how the participants themselves see and make use of them. In their own words, these young people have experienced their participation as something meaningful that improved their lives. Kaleidoscope opened a different space for them, in a community of recognition—a safe and creative space where they could feel welcomed, be themselves, learn to express and balance their cultures, share, and thrive. In this space, many have found significant support for their developmental projects. And, even more fundamental, it has become increasingly clear to them what those projects are and how they can pursue them. This analysis points to the potential of cultural health promotion, where supportive, creative arenas can be catalytic for agency and wellbeing. Community initiatives that go beyond healthcare in a traditional sense can offer dynamic spaces where new selves, relations, and directions can emerge. The same approach can be applied within schools; a positive recognition of differences in the classroom is likely to increase thriving and learning. Educational approaches based on the “Kaleidoscope method” are indeed already being taught at the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (2018). The application of these approaches within general education, as well as in local music schools and cultural arenas, could be worthwhile areas for further research. Lessons may also be learned from the differences between beginners and veterans in the project. While Kaleidoscope made a difference from the start, long-term participants show considerable maturation and appreciation of participating over time. It may have taken them a while to take not only the first step, from burden to “resource,” but also the next, from resource to agent. Recognition that opens safe and creative spaces for such processes may be a key to minority salutogenesis. Intercultural arenas remind us that our community connections are multidimensional and often simultaneous. Moving through life, we have more than one “we.” This sheds light on the dynamic and mutual constitution of individuals and communities, as illustrated here by the interplay between recognition and agency. Contributions can be made to cultural psychology, studying how the negotiations, transformations and growth opportunities are pronounced and given room in these communities. Recognition can contribute to making interaction in an intercultural community more

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constructive than conflictive. This does not entail covering up divergent interests or perspectives within a community, but rather giving tensions room to play out and potentially transform the parts and/or the whole. It also involves recognizing that the participants are unpredictably cocreating meaning through irreversible time, rather than putting together the “cultures” they are taken to represent. To capture the nuances between these understandings and how they restrain or enable interaction, it is necessary to carefully listen and observe, as the different displays of diversity may seem similar. The arts have a particular potential for such open-ended processes that allow individuals and communities freedom of movement. Future ventures in cultural psychology can continue to explore how creative meaning-making can build not only bridges between communities, but simultaneously ways forward for the people who participate. NOTES 1. Two of the interviews were analyzed based on notes taken during the interview rather than on verbatim transcription, due to technical difficulties with the recording. 2. The project was also presented for REK (the Regional Ethics Committee for Health Research), who concluded that their approval was not necessary since participants were not recruited as patients.

REFERENCES Antonovsky, A. (1987). Unraveling the mystery of health. Jossey-Bass. Barth, F. (1998). Ethnic groups and boundaries: The social organization of culture difference Waveland Press. (Originally published in 1969) Bile, A., Srour, S. N., & Herz, N. (2017). Shameless (Skamløs). Gyldendal. Boyd, N. M., & Bright, D. S. (2007). Appreciative inquiry as a mode of action research for community psychology. Journal of community psychology, 35(8), 1019–1036. Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative research in psychology, 3(2), 77–101. Cabell, K. R., & Valsiner, J. (2014). The catalyzing mind: Beyond models of causality (Vol. 11). Springer Science & Business Media. Chaudhary, N., Hviid, P., Marsico, G., & Villadsen, J. W. (2017). Resistance in everyday life: Constructing cultural experiences. Springer. Chryssochoou, X. (2004). Cultural diversity: Its social psychology. Blackwell. Collins, S. E., Clifasefi, S. L., Stanton, J., Straits, K. J., Gil-Kashiwabara, E., Rodriguez Espinosa, P., Nicasio, A. V., Andrasik, M. P., Hawes, S. M., & Miller, K. A. (2018). Community-based participatory research (CBPR): Towards equitable

Recognition as a Catalyst   181 involvement of community in psychology research. American Psychologist, 73(7), 884–898. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000167 Dahl, Ø., Jensen, I., & Nynäs, P. (Eds.). (2006). Bridges of understanding. Fagbokforlaget. David, E. J. R. (2014). Internalized oppression: The psychology of marginalized groups. Springer. DeMott, M. A. M., Jakobsen, M., Wentzel‐Larsen, T., & Heir, T. (2017). A controlled early group intervention study for unaccompanied minors: Can Expressive Arts alleviate symptoms of trauma and enhance life satisfaction? Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 58(6), 510–518. https://doi.org/10.1111/sjop.12395 Epland, J. (2018, April 3). Flere barn i husholdninger med vedvarende lavinntekt [More children in households with continously low income]. Statistics Norway. https://www.ssb.no/inntekt-og-forbruk/artikler-og-publikasjoner/flere-barni-husholdninger-med-vedvarende-lavinntekt Falkum, E., Hytten, K., & Olavesen, B. (2011). Anerkjennelsens psykologi [The psychology of recognition]. Tidsskrift for Norsk Psykologforening, 48/2011, 1080–1085. Fazel, M., Reed, R. V., Panter-Brick, C., & Stein, A. (2012). Mental health of displaced and refugee children resettled in high-income countries: Risk and protective factors. The Lancet, 379(9812), 266–282. Goodkind, J. R., & Deacon, Z. (2004). Methodological issues in conducting research with refugee women: Principles for recognizing and re‐centering the multiply marginalized. Journal of community psychology, 32(6), 721–739. https://doi. org/10.1002/jcop.20029 Hamre, O., Saue, S., Bræin, I., Fauske, E., Lyslo, Ø., & Dillan, G. (2011). Kaleidoscope. Fargespill. Hauger, B. (2018, April 4). Styrkebasert tilnærming i lokalt folkehelsearbeid. Innbyggerinvolvering, myndiggjøring og deltakelse [Strength-based approaches in local public health work. Citizen involvement, empowerment and participation]. The Norwegian Directorate of Health. https:// helsedirektoratet.no/Lists/Publikasjoner/Attachments/1438/Styrkebasert%20 tiln%C3%A6rming%20i%20lokalt%20folkehelsearbeid.pdf Hauger, B., & Mæland, I. (2015). Working with youth at risk: An appreciative approach. In T. Dragonas, K. J. Gergen, S. McNamee, & E. Tseliou (Eds.), Education as social construction. Contributions to theory, research and practice (pp. 92–107). Taos Institute. Honneth, A. (1996). The struggle for recognition: The moral grammar of social conflicts. MIT Press. Jansen, A. (2013). Narrative kraftfelt: utvikling hos barn og unge i et narrativt psykologisk perspektiv [Narrative force fields: The development of children and youth in a narrative psychological perspective]. Universitetsforlaget. Jansen, A., & Andenæs, A. (Eds.). (2019). Hverdagsliv, barndom og oppvekst. Teoretiske posisjoner og metodiske grep [Everyday life, childhood and upbringing. Theoretical positions and methodological approaches]. Universitetsforlaget. Kilroy, A., Garner, C., Parkinson, C., Kagan, C., & Senior, P. (2007). Towards transformation: Exploring the impact of culture, creativity and the arts on health and wellbeing. Arts for Health.

182  H. M. T. SEIP Kvaal, C. (2018). Crossing affordances: Hybrid music as a tool in intercultural music practices. Nordic Research in Music Education, Yearbook Vol. 18, 117–132. la Cour, P., & Schnell, T. (2016). Presentation of the sources of meaning card method: The SoMeCaM. Journal of Humanistic Psychology. https://doi. org/10.1177/0022167816669620 Langeland, E. (2014). Salutogenese og psykiske helseproblemer - en kunnskapsoppsummering [Salutogenesis and mental health issues—a state-of-the-knowledge overview]. Nasjonalt kompetansesenter for psykisk helsearbeid (NAPHA). Laverack, G. (2006). Improving health outcomes through community empowerment: A review of the literature. Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition, 113–120. Lindner, E. G. (2001). How research can humiliate: critical reflections on method. Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict, Annual Edition 2001–2002, 16–36. Märtsin, M. (2010). Rupturing Otherness: Becoming Estonian in the context of contemporary Britain. Integrative Psychological & Behavioral Science, 44(3), 65–81. Nelson, G., & Prilleltensky, I. (2010). Community psychology: In pursuit of liberation and well-being. Palgrave Macmillan. Noam, G., Oppedal, B., Idsoe, T. & Panjwani, N. (2014). Mental health problems and school outcomes among immigrant and non-immigrant early adolescents in Norway. School Mental Health, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12310-0149129-5 OECD. (2018). Investing in youth: Norway. Omland, G. B., & Andenas, A. (2017). Negotiating developmental projects: Unaccompanied Afghan refugee boys in Norway. Childhood, 25(1), 78–92. https://doi.org/10.1177/0907568217718032 Oppedal, B., Azam, G. E., Dalsøren, S. B., Hirsch, S. M., Jensen, L., Kiamanesh, P., Moe, E. A., Romanova, E. & Seglem, K. B. (2008). Psykososial tilpasning og psykiske problemer blant barn i innvandrerfamilier [Psychosocial adaptation and mental health problems among children in immigrant families] (Rapport 2008: 14). Norwegian Institute of Public Health. Paus, M. (2018, July 9). Vi trenger et «Fargespill» som går lenger [We need a ”Kaleidoscope” that goes further]. Ballade. http://www.ballade.no/sak/ vi-trenger-et-fargespill-som-gar-lenger/ Prilleltensky, I. (2005). Promoting well-being: Time for a paradigm shift in health and human services. Scandinavian Journal of Public Health, 33(66), 53–60. https://doi.org/10.1080/14034950510033381 Rogoff, B. (2003). The cultural nature of human development. Oxford University Press. Salole, L. (2018). Identitet og tilhørighet. Om ressurser og dilemmaer i en krysskulturell oppvekst [Identity and belonging. On resources and dilemmas in a crosscultural upbringing]. Gyldendal Akademisk. Sarason, S. B. (1974). The psychological sense of community: Prospects for a community psychology. Jossey-Bass. Schibbye, A.-L. L., & Løvlie, E. (2017). Du og barnet: Om å skape gode relasjoner med barn [You and the child: On creating good relationships with children]. Universitetsforlaget. Schuff, H. M. T. (2015, March 24). Barnas beste – bare når det passer oss? [The children’s best—only when it suits us?] Fædrelandsvennen, p. 22.

Recognition as a Catalyst   183 Schuff, H. M. T. (2016). Supporting identity development in cross-cultural children and young people: Resources, vulnerability, creativity. FLEKS-Scandinavian Journal of Intercultural Theory and Practice, 3(1). https://doi.org/10.7577/ fleks.1687 Schuff, H. M. T. (2018). Navigating cultures: Narratives of becoming among young refugees in Norway. Human Arenas. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42087-0180052-4 Smith, J. A., Flowers, P., & Larkin, M. (2009). Interpretative phenomenological analysis: Theory, method and research. SAGE. Solomon, T. (2016). The play of colors: Staging multiculturalism in Norway. Danish Musicology Online Special Edition, 187–201. Tungesvik, R. (2019, July 1). Tilstandsrapport for høyere utdanning 2019 [Status report for higher education 2019]. DIKU. https://diku.no/content/download/1187/ file/Tilstandsrapport%20HU%202019%20web.pdf Tyrer, R. A., & Fazel, M. (2014). School and community-based interventions for refugee and asylum seeking children: a systematic review. PloS One, 9(2). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0089359 Valsiner, J. (2014). An invitation to cultural psychology. SAGE. Valsiner, J. (2019). Cultural psychology as a theoretical project/La psicología cultural como proyecto teórico. Estudios de Psicología, 40(1), 10–47. https://doi.org/10 .1080/02109395.2018.1560023 Western Norway University of Applied Sciences. (2018, July 9). Interkulturell pedagogikk og fargespelmetodikk. Etter- og vidareutdanning, hausten 2018 [Intercultural education and Kaleidoscope methodology. Continuing education course, fall 2018]. Western Norway University of Applied Sciences. https://www.hvl.no/studier/studieprogram/2018h/bped-int/

CHAPTER 10

THE MIGRATION PROJECT Studying the Narrative Construction of Migrant Mobility in a Nonlinear Way Eva Céspedes and Floor van Alphen During the second half of the 20th century interdisciplinary research on migration has increased to understand its complex dynamics (Arango, 2003). Responding to the calls for considering the migrants’ point of view, this chapter focuses on the narrative that migrants construct about their migration project. As we will argue, migrants use narrative as a tool for structuring their experience and its study contributes to capture the sense they make of their own trajectories guided by a project. Borrowing the concept of migration project from sociology (Izquierdo, 2000a, 2000b), we aim to make the use of this notion explicit in studying the meaning making in different processes of human mobility. In the following, we will first elaborate on the sociocultural proposal to think about mobility in a nonlinear way. Innovative work in the social sciences will be interwoven with a sociocultural narrative approach to migration. Second, we will situate the reader in the context of Argentina to report on a study we carried out there in 2016. Aiming to understand not only the structure of the narration of migration experiences but also to look at the different themes introduced

Cultural Psychology in Communities: Tensions and Transformations, pp. 185–207 Copyright © 2020 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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while the experience is narrated, this study allows to see how the nonlinearity of migration plays out for migrants in similar ways, even though they might fall in different migration categories. Finally, we will articulate how this is an example of meaning making between communities. (RE)CONSIDERING MIGRATION IN A PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SOCIOLOGICAL VEIN Much pioneering work on migration was influenced by the theories that explained human mobility in terms of economic (e.g., push and pull) factors. As social scientists found these models increasingly unable to explain the reasons, the meaning and the characteristics of human mobility, in the last decades of the 20th century their approach shifted to consider migration in terms of flows and migratory networks (Arango, 2003). In this vein, according to Devoto (1992, p. 96, our translation): the [notion of] migratory linkage seems to successfully enable the consideration that migrants are not inert masses dragged along by the fluctuations of capitalism—which happened at least partially in the pull/push models. Rather, they are active subjects who are able to formulate strategies of survival and re-adaptation in the context of macrostructural changes.

Such linkage, referring to all the interpersonal bonds connecting migrants to their places of departure and destination, significantly facilitates their mobility (Massey et al., 1998). Psychological research seems to maintain a more classical view on the “here” and “there,” developing studies on acculturation and focus on the characteristics of societies of settlement, the individual migrant and, ultimately, on a match or a mismatch between them (Sam & Berry, 2016). There have been many studies on stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination (Tileaga, 2015), also within multicultural societies (Ward et al., 2016). In cultural psychology different frameworks have been developed that are attentive to the migrants’ explicit voice. Mahalingam (2006), for example, approaches human mobility as a complex process in which the immigrant takes on a double role of informing and organizing relationships, often constructing narratives that idealize the culture of origin. According to Mahalingam the migration process challenges the immigrant to give meaning to the community that receives her/him and to continuously give explanations about the customs of origin, to such an extent she/he is profoundly aware of her/his own identity. Recent sociocultural psychological work identifies three axes of the migration studies carried out in this vein: first, that of an ideological framework that shapes the construction of

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perceptions about migrants; second, that of the engagement with others; and third, that of the perspectives of the migrants themselves (Andreouli & Kadianaki, 2018). Zittoun et al. (2018) focus explicitly on mobility to refrain from the typical framing of migration from one country to another, which is often a simplification. These authors connect mobility to the life course, as has been done more recently by other social scientists. The acknowledgement that migration is a complex phenomenon is a reason for sociologists to study migration in terms of a project. Aware of this complexity and recognizing that the migrant does not always have the freedom to decide on how to migrate and where to, Izquierdo (2000b, p. 45) makes an important distinction: “The act of migrating is a matter of people, but the migratory fact is a social phenomenon.” According to this sociologist, it is no longer possible to conceive of human mobility as a linear process in a single direction, analyzed from its beginning in a country of departure to its end in terms of a successful adaptation to a new context. To be able to observe the process as a whole, including the reason to leave, enter, stay and consider an eventual return, Izquierdo (2000b) proposes to study the migration project. This project prefigures an entire cycle and involves spatial movements with certain time limits that establish and challenge the time horizon of the project. In this sense, the migration project is not finished at the time of departure, but ongoing: “the migration project is a tightly woven fabric made of attitudes, expectations and images that are brought and carried by migrants” (Izquierdo, 2000a, p. 226, our translation). As such, it involves significant connections between those who move and those who remain. Additionally, research has found that linear conceptions of migration no longer correspond to actual human experiences in the context of globalization. This was demonstrated by extensively studying the return process and multiple migrations, that is, people not only move back but keep on moving (Yehuda-Sternfeld & Mirsky, 2014). Indeed, there is continuous interaction with persons, information, and symbols between the place of origin and any other place where the migrant is staying or will be going to. That interactive flow generates the emergence of new scenarios of staying, going, or returning, as well as new ways of connecting and belonging to two or more spaces, times, and societies (Martinez Pizarro & Rivera, 2016). Because a migrant does not completely abandon the country of origin, considering the relationships that are sustained despite the physical distance and the building of new relationships, we could say that migration situates a person in more than one community. These would be imagined communities, similar to how Anderson (1991) understands it. However, according to the social scientific literature on migration networks, there are concrete interpersonal bonds that connect migrants to one place or another. With community, we therefore refer to a network of people who

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do not know all the others in this network, and, while plurality characterizes them, they share an image of their communion. Migratory networks connect the migrant to more than one community and the migration network can form a community of its own, for example a transnational community. Studying the return process and its multiple dimensions, sociologists Cavalcanti and Parella (2013) introduce the figure of a polyhedron to explain the interconnected practices of migrants that link people, objects, information, and symbols beyond national borders. Communication technologies have greatly enabled these networks that put local and global connections in tension. Figure 10.1 shows how the polyhedron is applied to the migration process by Martinez Pizarro and Rivera (2016). This clarifies that migratory processes are no longer uni- or bidirectional. Rather, depending on whether the focal point is between origin and destination or between leaving and returning, they are polyhedral.

Source: Adapted and translated from Martinez Pizarro & Rivera (2016).

Figure 10.1.  Transnational perspective of return migration. The bidirectional arrows show possible round trips between the country of origin and return. The diagram also shows that the country initially conceived as a destination country becomes a transit country when a third country is included in the process.

In cultural psychology, the isomorphism of space is also criticized when analyzing the way transnational communities reconfigure and re-territorialize spaces. Migrants invoke the voices from host and home communities to situate themselves in between different contexts. They are embedded in a network based on different supports for distance relationships through both real and imagined conversations (Bhatia, 2007). Furthermore, all phases of the migration project include meanings that migrants have not built in isolation, but rather in dialogue with multiple voices. That is, relatives who have already migrated, information from the media communication,

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incentive programs, etcetera (García & Delgado, 2008). These voices can be traced in the narrative that sketches the migration project. Indeed, as will be elaborated below, the migration project acquires a narrative modality when the migrant tells about planning and experiencing migration. A QUALITATIVE FOCUS ON THE MIGRANT’S NARRATIVE Narratives are spaces for the construction of both social and individual meaning. We assume that the narrative organizes the human experience (Bruner, 1998) and that its study will allow us to dive into the imaginable experiences of the narrators and explore the constructive process in a specific context of practice by asking what they do or try to do (Bruner, 1990). Furthermore, understanding the narrative involves both capturing the plot that gives meaning to the experience and the sequence in which events are presented (Bruner, 1990). However, this does not imply that the experience is constructed in a linear way. To conceive of narration as linear is, at least, questionable. Bamberg (2008) explains the nonlinearity of narrative construction, situating the subject in the present, building something in relation to the past and doing so by moving from the past back to the present. Indeed, there is something circular in this construction as it moves between then and now. Narratives, in their retrospective capacity, direct the gaze backwards (Freeman, 2015). This capacity is central to studying human mobility but not to know exactly what happened in each moment as if it is a chronological reconstruction of a personal history. Rather, narration is a way of thinking that makes experiences visible. In making narrative sense, threads of a fabric are interwoven, that is, migration experiences are knitted into a greater whole. Studying the narration by migrants fits very well within a rich cultural psychological framework. It also has clear methodological and ethical advantages. A qualitative interview method focused on the migrants’ narratives involves them in the investigation as agents. Mahalingam and Rabelo (2013) argue that this challenges the researcher to listen to what is uncertain or unknown and gives the migrant the opportunity to talk authentically about her or himself. De Fina (2003) defends a narrative approach stating that a narrative might occur as an answer to an interviewer’s question but still corresponds to expressive needs and reveals the narrator’s point of view on events and experiences. A clear advantage of a qualitative and narrative focus on the migrant’s experience is that it avoids generalizations in explaining the processes of migration and contributes to interrogating the stereotypes that underpin discrimination of migrant minorities (De Fina, 2003). Another fundamental reason for taking this approach is the narrative’s capacity to represent the intersection between the experience

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that the migrant tells about, her/his personal history and reflections based on socially shared representations (De Fina, 2003). This allows us close in on the conflicts, comparisons and idealizations that might arise in their stories in our analyses (Mahalingam, 2006; Yehuda-Sternfeld & Mirsky, 2014). Finally, we agree with De Fina that “narrative discourse is particularly illuminating of the ways in which immigrants represent the migration process and themselves in it” (p. 5) but disagree with her statement that “a direct reconstruction and reflection on the personal experience of immigration is difficult to elicit” (p. 6). The migration project, we think, provides us a means of access. The project constitutes an encompassing expression of the migration process because it involves trajectories (not destinations) and experiences, information, subjectivity and connections with others, in between multiple communities both territorial and social. Thus, we propose to approach the mobility of migrants through the narratives they tell in a qualitative interview setting, by responding to questions that inquire about the migration project. This is what we did in the study in Argentina presented below. MIGRATION IN ARGENTINA: PART OF A BIGGER HISTORY Argentina is one of the countries receiving the greatest numbers of migrants in the Americas. By the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, immigration from Europe was greatly encouraged. Reflecting the political ideology of leaving the “barbarism” of colonial times behind through the miscegenation of natives with European migrants, Argentina has been portrayed as a crisol de razas, a peculiar kind of melting pot. By 1946, migration from neighboring South-American countries like Bolivia, Paraguay and Peru increased and became visible (Novick, 2012). With the “Videla Law” installed during the last military dictatorship, these migrants were increasingly deported. In the 1990s there was discussion about furthering the restrictive policy, the economic pressure, and the social exclusion of migrants from bordering countries (Cravino, 2018). LatinAmerican migrants have been associated with theft and drug trafficking and media discourse has stressed how foreign invasion endangers the availability of jobs (Neufeld & Thisted, 1999). Extensive investigation points out the misconceptions about migration and seeks to provide empirical data recognizing the contributions of migrants in cultural, demographic, and economic terms (Griffa, 2012; Karasik, 2013). Over the last decades, Argentina has become a destination for migrants coming from a variety of countries but has also known emigration due to economic crises. The Migration Law 25871 passed in 2004 recognized the protection of migrants’ rights. A rhetoric of exclusion changed to a rhetoric of inclusion in a multicultural pluralism (Domenech, 2007). Nevertheless, anti-immi-

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grant discourse continued to exist in 2016, when we carried out this study. Growing concerns with human rights supported by the national legal framework struggle with the xenophobic discourse against Latin American migrants, reinforced by the idea that Argentina is an European country in South America (Bastia & vom Hau, 2014). According to Griffa (2012), this lack of knowledge calls for more analysis of the migration actually taking place. The study we report on in this chapter tried to answer to this call by focusing on the migration from Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela. Though not as numerous as the migrants from Bolivia, Paraguay, and Peru, a 2012 report indicates a steady growth of residents from those countries between 2004 and 2011 (International Organization for Migration [IOM], 2012). Over the last years, the migration from Venezuela incremented even more, but our study was carried out before the latest outbreaks of violence in Venezuela and the interviews do not reflect these events. Recently, Argentina’s migration policy has undergone significant transformations that no longer facilitate mobility. A Decree of Necessity and Urgency was issue in 2017 to modify part of the current law. Expulsions of foreigners for crimes without firm conviction have increased from 2 at the end of 2015, to 150 in 2018 (García & Nejamkis, 2018). These changes need to be considered while reading the interview fragments below, as the conditions of returning or continuing to another place no longer depend on what the person wants but are now increasingly constrained by the policy that the state defines. AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF THE PROJECT TO MIGRATE TO ARGENTINA The study carried out between 2011 and 2016 as part of a Master in Cognitive Psycology and Learning in Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO) aimed to investigate the way in which diverse migrants construct the meaning of their migration project to Argentina. Specifically, we sought to identify the structure of the narrations and analyze the content categories of the narratives with which the interviewees organized their migration experience. METHOD Participants We used a snowball-effect technique to establish contact with possible participants. Looking for interviewees through existing contacts helped in gaining trust, because not all of them were easy to approach. Particularly

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in the refugee community, the request to share stories was received with hesitation, as they needed to protect sensitive information. All the participants had arrived in Argentina during the five years before the interview and were still living there at the moment of the interview. This enabled a retrospective on a relatively recent and still ongoing process of mobility. In addition, this ensured that all the interviewees had entered Argentina under the 2004 migration law and procedures. The participants were from Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil, specifically because the increased immigration from those countries had not been investigated in much detail. Participants were also contacted so as to represent the variety of reasons for migration, that is, to enable the identification and study of the migration project in relation to the different kinds of human mobility appearing in the IOM (2006) glossary. All participants had entered the country fulfilling legal requirements and had finished their higher education when they arrived at Argentina, so following the same glossary their migration was regular and qualified. The participants’ characteristics are summarized in Table 10.1. This diversity of experiences allowed to analyze the similarity or differences in narrative structure. Table 10.1. Participant Characteristics Reason for Participant Migrating

Age

Categorization Time in According to IOM Nationality Argentina Glossary

Diana

Education

28

Colombian

2 years

Facilitated, Individual

Mariana

Politic-Economic

32

Venezuelan

3 months

Forced, Individual

Nelson

Work Offer

41

Brazilian

5 years

Labor, Group Family

Julio

Travel

30

Brazilian

4 years

Spontaneous, Individual

Lady

Refuge

43

Colombian

2 years

Forced, Group Family

Note: Pseudonyms were used to protect anonymity.

Procedure We carried out semistructured interviews looking for the migrants’ narrative reconstruction of their migration process and experiences (Sampieri et al., 2006). The participants chose the location of the interview. The interviews were in Spanish, the mother tongue of most interviewees and very well spoken by the Brazilian participants and were audio-recorded after the participants’ informed consent. The open question used to elicit narration was: could you tell me how you arrived at the decision to come to Argentina? Answering this question involves

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both reflecting on the decision to leave the country of origin as well as deciding on what other country to go to and why. This includes considering how this process was organized and allows the researcher to identify the complex variety of reasons that might exist for moving, and therefore to critically reflect on the idea that migration is motivated only by economic shortcomings. Some questions would appear later in the interview to go deeper into the stages of their migration project if the interviewees had not spontaneously told the interviewer about them. Related to their stay in Argentina and finally their consideration to return to their country of departure, the interviewees were asked: How is it to (finally) be in Argentina? This would elicit thoughts about the country and living in it as well as the social ties to the country of origin and those (newly created) at the destination. A last question, did you think about how much time were you going to stay in Argentina, came back to the initial plan for departure, relating to a possible return to the country of origin or leaving the country of residence for another. It elicits reflection on how much time the migrant had planned to stay and whether going back is an option or not. Analysis The qualitative analysis of the interviews was carried out following the constant comparative method (Strauss & Corbin, 1994), both applying the a priori framework of the migration project and the inductive construction of narrative codes. The process of constantly comparing the instances of tagged data within each category (Urquhart, 2013) allowed us to identify new categories emerging from the data. The tools derived from theory were further elaborated and grounded examining the dialogue and relationships between the different voices that appeared in the narrations (on multivoiced analysis see Aveling et al., 2015). This way of analyzing the migration experience allows us to conceive it not merely as a narrative that develops over time, inherently sequential. A dimension is added to the linearity of time by including the space in which a body moves from one place to another, through the world, between communities and practices that dialogue with each other in actual and imagined ways. RESULTS Deciding on Leaving the Country: A Story Inside a Story The narration that ensued in all participants after asking about the decision to migrate to Argentina, even though specific on the reasons why

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this decision was made, was similarly structured. The narrative started within a frame of place and time, the developments, or trajectories that the interviewees had found themselves in at the time of defining the project. For example: Diana: I, let’s say that I left home when I was very little. At 17, I went to study in Bogotá, I’m from Cali. Eh…, I followed the program, well, all of it; I never went back apart from vacations at home. So, I was in Bogotá.

Diana situates her migration experience within a continuity of leaving, first from the paternal home, and indicates where she was when she took the decision. Julio also situates in space and time, on a trajectory between the beach and the city of Sao Paulo, when he considers going to Buenos Aires. Julio: So, on vacation, I met a girl who is from here and well we studied together there. She left, later I went back Sao Paulo that was in summer on the beach and after some time, in the winter holidays—I said I’m going to Buenos Aires —.

The narrative is little chronological and space travels through time, as can be seen in his use of “here”—his present location—to indicate where the girl came from. There is a relation between space and time in which the narrative sets out. Both describe an initial situation within a larger story that was developing, involving a time and space structure in which the singular person “I” appears repeatedly, upon putting the actions together. The Turning Point of the Story In the participants’ narratives, there is a decision process in terms of “leaving” “going” and “coming” that is not one-directional. Different options, doubts and a series of voices are assembled when the interviewees reflect on their experience before deciding to migrate to Argentina. In the following fragment, Nelson indicates the sudden dynamics of moving to Argentina after having considered migrating to the United States. Nelson: So, I think that it all went very dynamically because of that. Because at that moment when I rejected the opportunity in the United States, I told her, look, when an opportunity arises that seems a little easier for you to adapt, that you can adapt and try to see how it is out there, then we go, we go and see.

The employment offers abroad, the opportunities for his wife to adapt and his own desire to accept an offer are considered in dialogue. A dialogue

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between “I,” “we” and “it” (the opportunity). Mariana would have wanted to go to Spain if this would have been economically viable. We see that she reconstructs her thoughts in present time. Mariana: Argentina is one of the countries most valued in South-America, so to say, for cinema. And next on my list in Europe there is Spain specifically, but economically I’m going to stay in Argentina and not in Spain.

There are doubts in her story about the continuity of her job, even though she is ready to go. Considering the conditions her country is in, she finally decides. Mariana: Well I finally get a job post after working in a multinational for six years. So, I said I’m going, I’m staying, I’m going. I had everything ready […] However the political-economic and social factor of my country pushed me to take the final decision to come [to Argentina]. That was like the last straw.

Accentuated by the pressure of the situation that made her flee and seek refuge, doubts appear in Lady’s narrative below when Ecuador is the first option. Moving to Argentina, she tells the interviewer, was for having no other options. Lady: When you are a refugee, they give you a third country. And I didn’t accept, because they offered me Argentina and I didn’t accept, my mom did come with my brother ... this is so you know that I did not come straight here, but that I was first in Ecuador and then I came here. So, I HAD TO come here. I first told them no. I did not know what to do whether to go or not.

In the following fragment, doubts appear and the dialogue with Diana’s parents encourage her to take the decision. Diana: I arrived home and told my mom: Mommy, look, I’m applying for a Master in Buenos Aires.... Wow that’s great and so on. When they replied [that the application was approved]: Mom, Dad, it’s in a month, I have to be in ... in ... in ... and how are you going to do that? And I said: I don’t know, what will I do? And my parents: well, you go, we’ll see how we’ll do that ... go ahead.

With some differences due to the pressure that the refugee was under, indecision and doubts characterize all the stories. Other countries are options and even when options are few, there are conversations with, questions for and advice from others. Many voices appear in telling about

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this decision moment, either giving options, responding to questions or pushing the protagonist in one direction or the other. Leaving The arrangements for traveling also characterize the narratives analyzed in a particular way, giving it a sudden dynamic. Matters of organizing the life that will be left behind, the goodbyes to relatives and making it through a bureaucratic process are told with indications of velocity. It seems a very hurried, even very stressful, experience. Diana: So, I came, err ... I arranged everything like marathonically with the documents for university, the apostilles, from here to there, well, I had it all and I could travel. Mariana: I start to search, and everything went very quickly.... And so, well, I went preparing everything, clearing it up, leaving everything in order and, well, starting to prepare the suitcases. Let’s see what I’ll bring. I started to go out with my friends a lot, more than usual, with my family visiting all of them.

Both Diana and Mariana talk about “everything” that is arranged, either needed as a requirement at the destination or quickly and neatly ordered for departure. The number of things to be done and the limited amount of time seem to reinforce each other and characterize both of their experiences. Diana uses the image of a marathon, giving the impression of an actual physical velocity. Family and friends have a special importance for Mariana. In the next fragment, Nelson just sighs when mentioning them, and again “everything” appears. The velocity now appears not just in a physical metaphor, but also through a gesture of snapping the fingers. Nelson: Truthfully, for us everything went very [snapping his fingers] fast, dynamic. We took the decision, well, we had things to settle in Brazil, but fortunately me and [his wife] always had a life, one of the things that ensure you, it’s the economic part, I had no liabilities. […] And the other part, sentimental, with the family and all, right? That we also, well [sighs] well, we got it, let’s go!

In the context of a forced departure, Lady mentions “everything” referring to what is involuntarily left behind. A whole life lived that is gone from one day to another. The velocity of the process has the quality of leaving against your will, torn away too quickly.

The Migration Project   197 Lady: So, it happened to me like that, quickly, ask for a permit, packing up the little we had and leave everything behind from one day to another and leave. My mom, my sister with her husband and children, me with my two children and a grandchild and his wife. And we left one night, at dawn. […] It is very hard, because when you grow up at home, you have a whole life; it makes me want to cry. When you have EVERYTHING! Your life, your youth, your childhood and you lost your father, for not paying attention to their threats.

For different reasons, with different people involved and with different emotions mentioned this turning point in the narrative is marked by volume and speed. Arriving The specific place of arrival and the others who are already there (waiting) are elements of the experience that is reflected upon. Having crossed the border, ideas about others belonging to national groups are frequent in the narratives. Mariana: And well, arriving here. I arrived at the house of a Venezuelan friend. He is married to a very pretty Argentine girl. They are beautiful people both of them.

It is also the start of inhabiting this new place that in the act of narrating retrospectively situated in Argentina is an inhabited “here.” Lady, on the other hand, considers how newcomers are reluctantly received and perceived. When she narrates the negative way in which locals describe Colombian men and women in Ecuador, she seems to take a distance, talking about “you” instead of herself arriving to Ecuador and engaging in social discourse rather than telling her story. Turning to her experience again, a friendly host and relief about finding a bed stick out in her first-person narration. Lady: Once you arrived in Ecuador, from that moment on they look down on you. To them a Colombian man is a drug-trafficker, roughnecks, and a Colombian woman is a whore, a prostitute, who takes away husbands. They perceive us to be the worst. […] We arrived in a place where we felt bad, but a priest received us, a friend who had a house ... with beds, with everything!

The arrival of Julio is very different for having freely chosen to move and is all about meeting others. Nationalities are mentioned here as well, but

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to highlight the new way in which he thinks of himself as part of a larger South-American community. Julio: So, I arrived here and spent a month here bahhhh, I met a Colombian, a Venezuelan, a Chilean, an Uruguayan. I felt part of South-America for the first time, you know ...

This way arriving is not to at a place, but to a network of relationships where the people and the bonds stand out instead of the geographical space. Going Back? Or Where to Next? The Impact of Time Passing We observed in the narratives that the decision to migrate implied a reference to the time that the interviewees anticipated to stay in Argentina, either planning a return or leaving to another place. In this vein, Julio’s narration below describes that his initial plan was to stay for a year. Even though he now relates more positively to Sao Paulo than he did before, he has resolved to stay in Argentina indefinitely. Julio: So that’s how it went. I stayed and what first was 1 year became 2 years, 3 years and now I’ve been here for 4 years and I think I will be here for a long time, basically that’s it. […] I’m happy here, I like it here, but since I made peace with Sao Paulo, you see, I also keep feeling this conflict. I’m, I want to stay here, but when I go to Sao Paulo it’s also like ahhhh my city, my people you know.

In the fragment, we can see that how long he will remain and whether he will finally settle in Argentina is somewhat undecided and his migration project is therefore still ongoing. He mentions feelings of conflict when he thinks not about the place but the people in his city of origin, impossible to know in their totality but with whom he imagines having something in common, calling them “my” people. At the outset of her narrative, Lady mentions the issue of never being able to return. Even though her family members have considered moving elsewhere or even back to Colombia, for her this is not (yet) an option. Lady: We left Colombia in 2007 and we have never returned. My brother left to Chile, because he says that he didn’t get what he wanted, he went to Chile. I’m not going to Chile, so no way.... So [my husband] told to me: Mami, the people in Colombia are calling me, and I answer him: Papi, what are we going to do there? And we leave it like that, “not yet, not yet”,

The Migration Project   199 I still have many things to do, I’m telling you because of him, not because of me.

Analyzing the voice of Lady’s husband in her narration, we also see that leaving a place and not being physically there does not close the process in a linear way. Contacts and news from over there appear to come and go, re-signifying the relations independently of actually being in the country. Finally, returning was not the only option considered by the interviewees. The idea to continue migrating is considered even right after arrival. When asked about how long she would stay in Argentina, Diana answered: Diana: No. I do not have the slightest idea, because sometimes I talk to my boyfriend like ... well and Mexico? Mexico could be, or Brazil. Like ... some time, like this, like here.

She does not mention a return, but rather considers places go to next. In summary, there is a clear structure in the mostly spontaneous accounts of the migration process given by the participants. The narratives begin by situating the protagonist in a context or process in which the decision arises. In taking the decision many voices are involved, and the process is uncertain, but then leaving the country is a high velocity experience and before long comes the arrival at the destination. Relationships and experiences give meaning to the actual movement not only between countries, but also between communities. Arrival means both a characterization and an evaluation of the new conditions, new relationships but putting in perspective and talking to those at the previous point of departure. The consideration of an eventual return or continuation of the migration process is explicitly present in the narratives. As shown in Figure 10.2, it is mostly an open question, depending on the future, but never without considering it. A variety of possibilities was considered at the time of the decision to migrate. Whether to stay, return or to continue to another place is also a matter of reflection from the first mobilization onwards. Finally, thoughts on coming or going are elaborated while the migration is ongoing, and we see how a migration process is nonlinear psychologically speaking. The Threads of the Fabric The threads that the interviewees introduced while talking about their experiences, that is, what they thematically interweave in the narrative fabric falls roughly into three categories:

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Figure 10.2.  Figure 10.2: Nonlinear migrant project.

• The characterization of Argentina in comparison to the country of origin and the emotions, attached to both places, playing out in this process. • People, family, social relations and “us.” • The changes of priorities and ideas while mobility occurs. Illustrating the first thread, at the beginning of the interview Julio establishes his relationship with his city of origin clearly emphasizing that it is “my city” and then he explains how his feelings there motivated him to think about going somewhere else. Julio: For me the first thing is that I was in my city Sao Paulo. I am, I love my city Sao Paulo, I always felt very present in the city, I always loved to live in Sao Paulo, but it is a very big city, it’s a metropole ... very big … and after some time I felt overwhelmed in the city.

In the next fragment, the continuous comparison is accentuated by “there” and “here.” Julio expresses his preferences clearly but neither idealizes his city of origin nor does he express entirely negative view of the one receiving him. A seesaw between the place of origin and the current residence appears here. Julio: There in Sao Paulo, maybe not. There’s also architecture but somewhat more modern, you know.... It’s something much more recent, in terms of urbanization, than it is here in Buenos Aires. […] If there’s something I don’t like in Buenos Aires it’s because, at first when I was here I saw these little cafés everywhere, so pretty you know ... and, in reality, no. There

The Migration Project   201 in Sao Paulo there’s a lot of live music you know, so there’s lots of places, there’s lots of cafés, there’s lots of work and here things aren’t like that. But there’s a lot of life here, the local musicians know how to generate spaces. [...] There we don’t know how to generate spaces, you know, and I like that a lot, the way how local musicians create their own scene.

In this fragment, he identifies in the plural “we” with the musicians of San Pablo and establishes the differences with those in Buenos Aires. This way he shows us how he thinks about the people, the relationships, and the spaces, in between the communities. Finally, Julio explicitly expresses the positive feelings about Buenos Aires and his doubts about Sao Paulo. He uses the metaphor of a romantic couple to explain his feelings and identifies the passing of time as a factor modifying his memory. Julio: And here I feel happy but err ... I feel that I belong here but it’s different, you know. Now I feel I made my peace with Sao Paulo because I no longer feel overwhelmed by the city, I don’t have any conflict. I want to be here because I know that Sao Paulo confuses. It’s like having an ex-girlfriend that you have passed a lot of time with and after you leave it sucks, only the best but err ... you already know. I’m not going to let my memory betray me.

These fragments clearly illustrate an affective comparison, a seesaw style of narration. Such comparison happens between people as well as places, as can be seen below. An example of the second thread can be found in the interview with Lady. As opposed to the other participants she had another migration experience in Ecuador before coming to Argentina, allowing her to compare. Without referring to anybody in particular, she describes her relations to “people from here,” expressing positive feelings, like Julio, but regarding people in the country of residence. Lady: Here everything is different because people are friendlier to you. Just look how they say that [people from the province she lives in now] are closed, but there’s people that say “Nooooo, Colombian, that’s so nice, I love it”, “ah, you are Colombian how great”. […] So, all people coming from Colombia ask me “hey blondie, I’m going to Argentina, how is Argentina?” I say, very nice, nobody will refuse you here.

In the following fragments, we can see how the plural “we” establishes differences with the Argentines. Lady uses a humorous tone and laughs to soften the strong sense of belonging in front of the Argentine interviewer. The identification with and belonging to a social group with a certain commonality is very evident.

202  E. CÉSPEDES and F. van ALPHEN Lady: So, we are going to give a party and I like that, because it is our music, I mean, I don’t have anything against your music, but it is ours [laughter] we are going to listen to our music ...

Diana also establishes a difference between “we” the Colombians and the Argentinean “people”. Diana: That maybe we are much more structured. […] Ehhh I like that, I like the climate of the people themselves, to see, to listen to the Argentines about many things.

When the interviewees refer to Argentines, they change in narrative style from using the plural “we” and “our” to the anonymous and unified “people.” That is, their individuality merges with other people from the same country of origin. But in the comparison, there is a positive evaluation about both, perhaps because the interviewer represents Argentina for the interviewees and they feel they should be polite. However, when a second foreign researcher is present the comparison is made positively and carefully as well. The third thread involves changes in priorities and ideas throughout the migration process. Both Diana and Nelson indicate that their initial plans were solid; their objective was clear, as was the amount of time they were going to stay and when they would go back. However, events, experiences and other intervening voices modify this plan. This means their mobility is ongoing, but the former plan has changed the course. Nelson: It was three years, in my head it was three years and ... well ... When these three years had passed the first thing I said was [snaps his fingers and slaps on the table] we’re going, but oh well.… Then the company goes from heeeeere, takes me from theeeere [drawing out the words] until making a proposal and they convinced me to renew for two more years. […] There were other plans, but that has stopped anticipation. So, well, exactly when these three years were over my daughter was born here. At that moment we even considered the possibility that she would be born there in Brazil, but then we said wait, what for? […] why giving birth there or here, and there was no answer, you understand. In the end it was all the same.

Nelson seems to express resignation with “but oh well”, which slows down the pace of his consideration to go back. The passing of time and the negotiation at the point of redefining the original plan are expressed by dragging out his words. Diana explains her changes by extensively thinking about her previous idea.

The Migration Project   203 Diana: The plans were to return because I have a lot of possibilities, there is a lot to do ta, ta, ta, because also at university I always saw that my teachers, they left, they specialized ta ta ta. They returned to the university so that interested me a lot too, to be able to give back to the country, to the university, to whatever it was. But then I extended my idea and understood that I do not need to be in Colombia, because I do not have to tie myself to the fact that the contribution has to be strictly in Colombia.

Diana completes with successive “ta”s the common ideas and social expectations that function as a sort of mandate, which she contemplated when first formulating her plan. In both cases, upon reconstructing their priorities, the interviewees are narrating about how the mandates they brought from their countries of origin are put into perspective and reformulated based on their life experiences. DISCUSSION In this study we analyzed the migration project narrative structure, related to a diversity of experiences. Though not at all exhaustive, it suggests that the concept of migration project, as formulated by Izquierdo (2000a), indeed allows a very comprehensive view on the whole experience because it introduces the consideration to return at the very beginning of the plan. It also contemplates a day-to-day reconstruction of staying, returning or continuing the migration. We found that the moment in which the decision is taken has a high intensity, with the narratives showing a velocity when the interviewees reflect on the organization of their journey, specially accentuated in the refugee context. In our study we could see that in telling their story the migrants switch from being a folk anthropologist (Mahalingam, 2006) and engaging in comparative discourse to making sense of their own migration experiences. Comparisons were made by all the interviewees, but the perception of hostility by the refugee in one of the inhabited countries stood out. We did not find indications that in this comparison the country of origin was idealized in a process of disenchantment with the destination country, as it was found by Mahalingam (2006). An initial idealization of the new country or a disappointment as time went by, as it was found by Yehuda-Sternfeld and Mirsky (2014), we did not encounter either. Rather, we found a seesaw going back and forth between the two in a positive and negative sense, which appears to increase in complexity when the migrants stay for a longer time and the migration project changes. Here we should, however, contextualize the migration processes and have a closer look at the type of migration and the receiving county. Not all migrants were well received in Argentina, the legal frameworks, and policies at the time notwithstanding. Furthermore, the migrants from Colombia, Brazil, and

204  E. CÉSPEDES and F. van ALPHEN

Venezuela that we interviewed had all received high education and this makes a real difference. Another limitation of our study, in terms of idealization versus disillusion, is that the narratives were told while still residing in the destination country, whereas this would also need to be investigated among migrants who returned to their home country. Finally, a rather small language barrier facilitated all the migration processes we looked at. Empirically employing the concept of migration project, renders the complexity of human mobility visible. To study the migration project as a whole allows us to break with the linear way of studying a static and unidirectional process. It adds a sense of returning to the past and moving towards an understanding of mobility in a globalized context, not only transnational but also between communities, including its circularity and novel dynamics beyond the reverse process to remigration or emigration. Its inherent circularity and embeddedness within communities and networks of voices are clearly found in the migrants’ narratives and invite further systematic study. It would be interesting to study in more depth how this experience modifies and challenges the conformation of identities linked to the feelings of belonging to a national collective. We would like to draw attention to how the experience narrated invites a critical reflection on the concept of Nation-State, which no longer seems to explain the meanings migrants construct when they talk about their experience in between imagined communities. Finally, further research in terms of the migration project could study more exhaustively how complex relationships are established and maintained at a distance, or in-between communities. Particularly focusing on emotions and the slight differences that began to show up in the narrative of forced migration, there are possibilities to continue investigation. NOTE 1. Ley de Migraciones [Migration Law] N° 25871 Decree 616/2010. The main difference with anterior legislation is the recognition of mobility as an inalienable human right and the inclusion of right for education, health, and family reunion and the elimination of the duty to report irregular migrants.

REFERENCES Anderson, B. (1991). Imagined communities (2nd ed.). Verso. Andreouli, E., & Kadianaki, I. (2018). Psychology and human mobility: Introduction to the special issue and ways forward. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 24(4), 383–388. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pac0000365

The Migration Project   205 Arango, J. (2003). Inmigración y diversidad humana. Una nueva era en las migraciones internacionales [Immigration and human diversity. A new era in international migration]. Revista de Occidente, 268, 5–21. Aveling, E. L., Gillespie, A., & Cornish, F. (2015). A qualitative method for analyzing multivoicedness. Qualitative Research, 15(6), 670–687. https://doi. org/10.1177/1468794114557991 Bamberg, M. (2008). Twice-told-tales: Small story analysis and the process of identity formation. In T. Sugiman, K. J. Gergen, W. Wagner, & Y. Yamanda (Eds.), Meaning in action (pp. 183–204). Springer. Bhatia, S. (2007). Rethinking culture and identity in psychology: Towards a transnational cultural psychology. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 27, 301–321. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0091298. Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of meaning. Harvard University Press. Bruner, J. (1998). Realidad mental y mundos posibles [Actual minds, possible worlds]. Gedisa. (Originally work published 1987) Bastia, T., & vom Hau, M. (2014). Migration, race and nationhood in Argentina. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 40(3), 475–492. https://doi.org/10.108 0/1369183X.2013.782153 Cavalcanti, L., & Parella, S. (2013). El retorno desde una perspectiva transnacional [The return from a transnational perspective]. REMHU Interdisciplinary Mobility, 41, 9–20. Cravino, M. C. (2018). Política migratoria y erradicación de villas de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires durante la dictadura militar: La expulsión de migrantes de países limítrofes [Migration policy and slum eradication in the City of Buenos Aires during the last military dictatorship: The deportation of migrants from neighboring countries]. Clepsidra. Revista interdisciplinaria de Estudios sobre Memoria, 5(10), 76–93. De Fina, A. (2003). Identity in narrative. A study of immigrant discourse. John Benjamins. Devoto, F. (1992). Movimientos migratorios. Historiografía y problemas [Migration movements. Historiography and problems]. Centro Editor de América Latina. Domenech, E. (2007). La agenda política sobre migraciones en América del Sur: El caso de Argentina. [The political agenda on migration in South America: The case of Argentina]. Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales, 23(1), 71–94. doi: 10.4000/remi.3611 Freeman, M. (2015). Narratives as a mode of understanding: Method, theory, praxis. In A. De Fina & A. Georgakopoulou (Eds.), The handbook of narrative analysis (pp. 21–37). Wiley Blackwell. García, J., & Delgado, A. (2008). Imaginarios sociales sobre migración: evolución de la autoimagen del inmigrante [Social imageries about migration: the development of the immigrant’s self-image]. Papers, 89, 81–101. García, L., & Nejamkis, L. (2018). Regulación migratoria en la Argentina actual: Del modelo regional al recorte de derechos [Migration regulation in current Argentina: from the regional model to the reduction of rights]. Autoctonía. Revista de Ciencias Sociales e Historia, 2(2), 219–241. http://dx.doi.org/ 10.23854/autoc.v2i2.55

206  E. CÉSPEDES and F. van ALPHEN Griffa, N. (2012). Las migraciones actuales en Argentina. Memorias de las jornadas realizadas el 18 y 29 de junio de 2011 [Current migrations in Argentina. Proceedings of the session on June 18 and 29 2011]. EDUNTREF. International Organization for Migration. (2006). Glosario sobre migración [Migration glossary]. Cuadernillo 7, Derecho Internacional sobre Migración. Suiza. International Organization for Migration, Oficina Regional para América del Sur (2012). Perfil Migratorio de Argentina 2012 [Migration profile of Argentina 2012]. Buenos Aires. Izquierdo, E. A. (2000a). El proyecto migratorio de los indocumentados según género [The migratory project of the undocumented according to gender]. Papers, 60, 225–240. Izquierdo, E. A. (2000b). El proyecto migratorio y la integración de los extranjeros [The migration project and the integration of foreigners]. Revista de Estudios de Juventud, 49(02114364), 43–52. Karasik, I. (2013). Migraciones Internacionales. Reflexiones y estudios sobre la movilidad territorial contemporánea [International migrations. Reflections and studies about contemporary territorial mobility]. Ediciones Ciccus. Martinez Pizarro, J., & Rivera, C. (2016). Nuevas tendencias y dinámicas migratorias en América Latina y el Caribe [New trends and migration dynamics in Latin America and the Caribbean] (Población y desarrollo N°144). Retrieved April 4, 2018, from https://repositorio.cepal.org/bitstream/handle/11362/39994/1/ S1600176_es.pdf Mahalingam, R., & Rabelo, V. C. (2013). Theoretical, methodological, and ethical challenges to the study of immigrants: Perils and possibilities. In M. G. Hernandez, J. Nguyen, C. L Saetermoe, & C. Suarez-Orozco (Eds.), Frameworks and Ethics for Research with Immigrants. New Directions for Child and Adolescents Development, 141, 25–41. Mahalingam, R. (2006). Cultural psychology of immigrants. Routledge. Massey, D. S., Arango, J., Graeme, H., Kouaouci, A., Pellerino, A., & Taylor, J. E. (1998). Una evaluación de la teoría de la migración internacional: el caso de América del Norte [An evaluation of the theory of international migration: the case of North America]. In G. Malgesini (Comp), Cruzando fronteras. Migraciones en el sistema mundial (pp 189–264). Icaria, Fundación Hogar del Empleado. Neufeld, M. R., & Thisted, J. A. (1999). El “crisol de razas” hecho trizas: ciudadanía, exclusión y sufrimiento [The “melting pot” in tatters: Citizenship, exclusion and suffering]. In M. R. Neufeld & J. A. Thisted (Eds.), De eso no se habla (pp. 23–56). Eudeba. Novick, S. (2012). Transformations and challenges of Argentinean migratory policy in relation to the international context. Migraciones Internacionales, 6(3), 205–237. Sam, D., & Berry, J. (Eds.). (2016). The Cambridge handbook of acculturation psychology. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316219218 Sampieri, R., Fernández-Collado, C., & Baptista, P. (2006). Metodología de la investigación [Research methodology]. McGraw-Hill. Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1994). Grounded theory methodology. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 273–285). SAGE.

The Migration Project   207 Tileaga, C. (2015). The nature of prejudice: Society, discrimination and moral exclusion. Routledge. Urquhart, C. (2013). Grounded theory for qualitative research. SAGE. https://doi. org/10.4135/9781526402196 Ward, C., Szabo, A., & Stuart, J. (2016). Prejudice against immigrants in multicultural societies. In C. Sibley & F. Barlow (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of the psychology of prejudice (pp. 413–437). Cambridge University Press. https://doi. org/10.1017/9781316161579.018 Yehuda-Sternfeld, S., & Mirsky, J. (2014). Return migration of Americans: Personal narratives and psychological perspectives. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 42, 53–64. Zittoun, T., Levitan, D., & Cangiá, F. (2018). A sociocultural approach to mobile families: A case study. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 24, 424–432. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pac0000313

CHAPTER 11

EXPLORING THE TENSIONS AND POSSIBLE TRANSFORMATIONS IN TALENT MOBILITY TO ESTONIAN UNIVERSITIES Muhammed Abdulai

Advances in information and communication technology and transportation can make it easier for people, goods and services to move within and across national borders. In the European Union (EU) at the beginning of 2016, 20.7 million people living in the 28 member-states were citizens of non-European countries, representing 4.1% of the total EU population. While globalization has made it easy for people from the global north to travel for educational purposes and professional advancement, technologies might also strengthen the social control and borders in cases of precarious labor migrants, family reunification, refugees, and asylum seekers. Against this backdrop, increasing attention has been drawn to the effects of globalization on talent mobility, that is, the attraction of skilled students by universities (Iredale, 2005; Kofman & Raghuram, 2006; Nagel, 2005; Yeoh & Huang, 2011). The OECD (2015) report revealed that there

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were 4.5 million students worldwide who enrolled outside their country of citizenship. Skilled students from the global south can be met with far less restriction than other migrants. Notably, education has become a tradable commodity just like any other commodity in the market over the past 20 years, and has been used as an avenue for recruiting and retaining the best brains in most Western countries (de Wit, 2015; Naidoo, 2011). In view of this, Naude (2012) observed that while more and more resources are directed toward curbing apparently poverty-driven migration, European countries are vying with one another for the best brains to tackle the problems of an ageing population. Nevertheless, talent mobility has also brought new demands and challenges for universities and the host countries to manage tensions emanating from the contact between people from different backgrounds. In the study discussed in this chapter, I focus on different actors immersed in talent mobility, particularly students from Sub-Saharan Africa, their lecturers, administrators from Estonian Universities and the Estonian domestic students they meet. I am interested in exploring how these different actors reflect upon and construct their interactions, how they talk about their encounters in terms of positive transformations, tensions, and ambiguities. I have situated the study within the university environment, given the increased talent mobility that turns universities into pre-eminent sites for studying intercultural encounters. At the same time, universities are communities in which sociocultural learning, expansion, creative construction, but also disputes and resistance occur. Estonia is considered for this study because the liberalisation of the Estonian economy in the 90s and its entrance to the European Union in 2004 have precipitated a circular movement of people between the new member states and Western Europe (Favell, 2008). This synchronizes with the motivation among nationals from third world countries to relocate to Estonia for purposes of study (European Migration Network, 2012). The 2012 European Migration Network study indicated the significance of internationalization for higher education in Estonia. The report emphasized that Estonia should pay special attention to recruiting international students at the doctoral and master levels, focusing on the fields of study that can benefit Estonia. Between 2008/2009 and 2015/2016 there was a rise in the number of international students in Estonia quadrupling from almost 900 to around 3500. In the subsequent academic year of 2017/2018, Estonia’s higher education institutions hosted about 4,300 international graduates, while 400 students took part in winter and summer schools. Moreover, as of September 2018, there were 15 programs at the undergraduate level, 75 master’s degree programs and 69 doctoral level programs with English as the language of instruction (European Migration Network, 2018). The growing numbers of international graduates in Estonia’s higher

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education institutions indicate that Estonia has emerged as a destination for internationally mobile students. This makes Estonia an interesting case for research that explores how cultural differences appear in the meaning making about interactions between different actors involved in talent mobility in universities. One major reason for exploring this among Sub-Saharan African students is that the international mobility ratio of African students to Estonian universities keep increasing almost every year, yet they represent one of the least studied groups in Estonia to this date. The limited research with the community of talent migrants and their host universities and society motivated me to explore how the multiple actors of talent mobility interact, and particularly how they reflect on this encounter in different ways, how do cultural differences appear in their accounts? What do they see as potentials for learning? What are the challenges, tensions and ambiguities identified? This chapter aims to contribute to a cultural psychology of communities by offering a critical analysis on how the different actors within the talent mobility community in Estonian universities construct meaning or meanings around their encounters with “others.” Furthermore, this chapter engages with the question of what can be done to facilitate the interaction within such a community. COMPETITION FOR TALENT THROUGH INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS MOBILITY In recent times, the potential of highly skilled migrants to positively impact on the economic development of the receiving countries has led to a global race for talents. In view of this, Li and Lowe (2016) indicate an inextricable relation between economic development and the ability to mobilize, attract, develop, and retain human creative talents. Florida (2002) argued that the advancement of countries and regions within the current economic system depends on whether they possess a specific type of talented human capital. The intensification of intellectual capital in particular means that countries have a greater need for highly skilled workers not only to develop new ideas, but also to access, understand and use knowledge for technology and economic development (Azman et al., 2016). According to Portes (1987), competitive advantage is related to the availability of highly skilled workers: talented human capital produces advantages in efficiency, effectiveness and flexibility that enhance economic productivity. Also, Hawthorne (2010) revealed that Australia has heavily relied on immigrants to meet the demands for skilled labor. This is done through a two-step migration route. That is, first migration aimed at obtaining a higher education and then transformation into skilled labor.

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In terms of how highly skilled migrants are recruited and trained, Glaeser and Saiz (2004) noted that universities play substantial roles in developing human capital, which is why international graduates are regarded as the ideal highly-skilled individuals to attract. The graduates not only share their new acquired knowledge and skills in the labor market of the host countries, they can also contribute to the regional economy, through leisure and social participation and by engaging in local consumption. In addition, a study by Li and Lowe (2016) on the war for talent indicated that universities are now co-opted into the competition for talent. Academic institutions engage in recruiting the brightest and best international students and contribute to their subsequent retention in the host countries as high-skilled workers after their graduation. According to Musterd and Gritsai (2012), universities have an incredible capacity to draw researchers and students from a wide variety of racial, religious, and ethnic backgrounds. However, while the literature suggests that universities are rapidly becoming sites for development of human capital and technologies, they also remain communities where critical thoughts are developed, and they are important meetings points for people from different backgrounds. International mobility of students is about recruiting talent, but it is equally important to generate spaces for intercultural contact (Andreouli & Kadianaki, 2018), contributing to cultural widening of horizons and construction of new communities. This is in line with Appadurai`s conceptualization of globalization in terms of “flows” and “scapes.” Flows reflect the movement of people, technology, and cultural products across different parts of the world, and cultures are carried and transformed through scapes (Appadurai, 1990, p. 7). While skilled international students cross borders under the logic of profit, their intercultural encounters (Bennett, 2012) in the host countries, might involve sociocultural learning, cultural transformations and also resistance. Simultaneously, the inability of the host universities and societies to adequately receive international students from different cultural backgrounds, might lead to more ambivalence, tensions and resistance. RETHINKING CULTURAL CONTACT TO STUDY TALENT MOBILITY Envisioning a multicultural world, a lot of research has focused on individuals who are socialized in two or more cultural contexts and on acculturation (Berry, 2001). The term acculturation has been in existence since the 19th century. However, it was popularized in the mid-1930s by the American council for social sciences to denote the process of cultural change between two different cultural groups who come into contact with each other (Cara,

Exploring the Tensions and Possible Transformations   213

2013). According to Redfield et al. (1936): “Acculturation comprehends those phenomena which result when groups of individuals having different cultures come into continuous first-hand contact, with subsequent changes in the original culture patterns of either or both groups” (p. 149). The definition focuses on dualist cultural interactions and changes that individuals experience as a result of prolonged contact with people from different cultural backgrounds. John Berry has contributed to defining acculturation from a social psychological perspective. In this regard, Berry (2005) contends that acculturation is the process of cultural and psychological changes that followed intercultural contacts. On one hand, cultural changes may include changes in the language, values, and beliefs of the minority groups. On the other hand, psychological changes may include changes in the individual`s attitude, identity, group contacts and thinking. The acculturation model (Berry, 2001, 2005, 2008) has been criticized for being essentially mechanistic, too simplistic and unfitting for dialogical or constructive perspectives on human mobility (Bhatia, 2002; Bhatia & Ram, 2009; Gamsakhurdia, 2018). Acculturation has therefore been reframed within dialogical and social representation theory frameworks (Bhatia & Ram, 2009; Rosa & Tavares, 2013). In view of this, an approach to culture employed in this study is Geertz’s (1973), who conceived culture as a web that people spin themselves. Created by members of the society, it confines the members to the social realities they have spun and facilitate their functioning in these realities. Not unlike this web, Holliday et al. (2004, p. 64) coined the term “small culture,” or any cohesive social grouping with no necessary subordination to large cultures. They argued that a small culture is “non-essentialist” since it does not relate to the essence of national, ethnic and international entities, but rather relates to how individual behaviour is negotiated, constructed and discursively formed within any cohesive social groupings or community. Valsiner (2014) proposes that culture is a constant developing semiotic system that gives meaning to a person’s internal and external world. In this regard, culture cannot be perceived as a stable or isolated thing as it is a result of permanent dialogue and negotiation (Gamsakhurdia, 2018). Culture is constructed in the encounter between people and by all those elements with whom they interact (Valsiner, 2014), as well as the meaning systems operating at different levels (Valsiner, 2013). Linking this understanding to my research questions, it implies that the interactions between students from Sub-Saharan Africa, their lecturers, academic support staff, domestic students and the general host society are constructed by all the actors who are engaged in a day-to-day interaction, under the influence of cultural meaning systems, and with the potential to transform these meaning systems, inside and outside the university.

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Building on Bhatia’s dialogical perspective, Gamsakhurdia (2018), integrated the dialogical self-theory (DST) and social representation theory (SRT) and developed the proculturation framework as an alternative for acculturation. He holds that is the process of reconstructing the self after meeting and dialoguing with any kind of cultural elements, for example social representations. New I-positions or perspectives within the self can be formed this way, or previous positions reconstructed. In this regard, proculturation is conceived of as both a dialogical and developmental processes. Within the contemporary university community in particular, one would expect to see culture negotiated, constructed and reconstructed all the time. Considering that proculturation is a process on the level of personal development, within meaningful cultural webs that cannot be neatly separated, the study of cultural contact can be nuanced and enriched. Looking at the different actors in talent mobility and how they construct their interactions, however, it seems that they do construct cultures as separate entities. As a sociologist, I situated my study within the social constructivist philosophical world view. This philosophy holds that reality is constructed by individuals in interaction (Kuada, 2012, p. 73). Thus, it enables people to construct meanings out of situations, meanings that are forged in interactions and discussions with others. Constructivist researchers usually address not only the “process” of interactions, but also attend to the specific context under which people live, work, and interact. In my study, the context was talent mobility, which involved new contact between university personnel, domestic students, and students from Sub-Saharan Africa. I focused on how the contact between the different actors in talent mobility is reflected upon and constructed by the actors themselves. In a way, they compose an emerging talent mobility community in Estonia, but there is also community in using the same or similar semiotic means toward (imagined) similar ends (Valsiner, 2012). In this sense, a lot of different people are involved in each other’s meaning making nowadays, because people from different backgrounds are more likely to come into contact that ever before. METHODOLOGY The data collection process started after approval from the academic progress review committee of Tallinn University School of Governance Law and Society. In order to gain access to the study participants and sites, e-mails were sent to some heads of departments of the universities and institutions where the research was to be conducted. When the targeted universities and institutions granted the approvals, I adopted the snowball sampling technique to identify the research participants. The snowball sampling

Exploring the Tensions and Possible Transformations   215

technique is used when potential participants are hard to find (Bryman, 2004). In this regard, the data collection started when I identified two PhD candidates from Sub-Saharan Africa in one of the Universities in Estonia who agreed to be interviewed. They later helped me identify potential participants in other universities and colleges. I included students from Sub-Saharan Africa, lecturers from the European Union who had supervised or are still supervising students from Sub-Saharan Africa, both at the PhD and masters levels, university administrators who had direct contact and engagement with international students, and domestic students. In Table 11.1, the interview participants are presented. The primary data were gathered through 15 face-to-face interviews between August and December 2018. Every research participant was interviewed in a semistructured way. This semistructured technique of data collection affords the researcher some level of control over the line of questioning, but it is also flexible and innovative in approach (Bryman, 2004). The use of guided, open-ended, and focused questions afforded the Table 11.1. Schematic Presentation of the Research Participants

Research Participant

M/F

Profession

Institution

Duration of Migration or Experience With Talent Mobility

ME

F

Lecturer

UNI-1

2 years

Nationality Estonian

KP

F

Lecturer

UNI- 1

Over 5 years

Estonian

HH

M

Lecturer

UNI-2

Over 5 years

Estonian

AA

M

Lecturer

UNI-3

4 years

Estonian

JQ

M

Student

UNI-1

4 years

Ghanaian

ST

M

Student

UNI-1

3 years

Ghanaian

EJ

M

Student

UNI-2

2 years

Nigerian

BO

M

Student

UNI-1

2 years

Nigerian

BN

M

Student

UNI-3

2 years

Cameroonian

SA

M

Student

UNI-4

3 years

Ghanaian

KK

F

Administrator

UNI-1

Over 5 years

Estonian

LI

F

Administrator

UNI-1

3 years

Estonian

JB

F

Administrator

UNI-2

Over 5 years

Estonian

MM

F

Student

UNI-2

2 years

Estonian

OT

M

Student

UNI-1

2 years

Estonian

Note: F = female; M = male.

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respondents the freedom to give insightful, but new perspectives and interpretations of their interactions with others (Kuada, 2012). The research participants were given copies of the interview-guide to go through the questions before the start of the interviews. Every interview lasted between 35 minutes and 1 hour. All interviews were audiotaped and transcribed. Data analysis and interpretation was premised on the hermeneutic approach. The hermeneutic approach seeks to offer an understanding through the systematic interpretations of actions and texts. Thus, the interview transcripts were coded and categorized into two main themes, based on those emanating from the interview data. Out of the analysis, two main themes emerged. First, mobility of talent, cultural transformations, and constructions, and, second, fluidity and tensions in talent mobility. These two themes will be presented and discussed through thick descriptions (Creswell, 2009) and quotes, in the following section. In my analysis, I connect to the literature used in the theoretical framework, and some cultural psychology literature I had previously consulted. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION Theme 1: Mobility of Talent, Cultural Transformations, and Constructions Different actors revealed that they effectively transformed during their experiences with talent mobility. As exemplified below, they said that their prejudices were reconstructed, and worldviews expanded. For members of the hosting institutions, there were initial ambiguities and they transformed toward openness and dealing with “others.” Students from Sub-Saharan Africa seem to welcome the opportunities and challenges associated with experiencing a new environment. Yet, upon immersion in the host universities and society, they experienced the new demands and challenges that come with human mobility. Their transformations and constructions become somewhat visible in the students’ reflections. A Ghanaian PhD candidate at UNI-1 describes his first experience in Estonia as: I come from a large family background and on a daily basis I had an interaction with a large size family in Ghana, but when I arrived in Estonia, I was living an isolated life, basically, living an independent life, that was a little bit challenging, but after couple of months, I understood the system and was a bit integrated. (JQ-5)

In his words, the first few months in Estonia were challenging, and it was difficult to adjust from being raised in an extended Ghanaian family

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environment to a more isolated and independent Estonian environment. Indeed, the research participant had grown up in the Ghanaian environment where the knowledge, beliefs, values, attitudes, and skills that he had acquired were different from the host context, which might have resulted in a conflicting experience at the beginning, of “an isolated life, basically.” In this vein, the student juxtaposes isolation and independence. He does not make the cultural difference that explicit, but the difference between “family” on the one hand and “system” on the other hand is quite clear. After some months of stay in Estonia, he said, he had understood the new environment and had been able to integrate a bit. Some transformation took place according to the interviewee. In addition, some of the research participants shared the view that the presence of international students promoted the creation of an arena of cultural negotiation, understanding, construction, and reconstruction of meanings and identities. Against this backdrop, a Cameroonian and a final year postgraduate student at UNI-3 was asked to share his view on how he had experienced change in an Estonian institution: I have experienced a lot of changes for the past two years. I have seen lots of things which I might not have gained if I had decided to pursue my masters in Cameroon. I am now open to different viewpoints and this has changed my worldview. On a personal level, my knowledge base has increased, and I feel more confidence than ever before. (BN-9)

These quotes not only reveal the satisfaction gained through this new experience, and the knowledge and skills he attributes to it. It also suggests the construction of new value systems (new worldview, perspective, and confidence) according to the research participant. This seems to resonate with the argument of Gamsakhurdia (2018) that encounters with foreign or new cultural elements (“viewpoints”) could promote proculturation. In this regard, there could be new contributions to the already existing individual perspectives and knowledge, or there could be (re)negotiation of the old ones. In light of this, the effective interaction of the international students with the host university and society could indeed promote the addition of new value systems into the former value system of the study participants. Another research participant, a lecturer at UNI-1 who had the opportunity to supervise a PhD candidate from an African background noted: Er … at the beginning, I was doubtful, considering students from Africa. I was not certain of their capabilities, and I feared that they could come, but may not pursue the course, and engage in other economic activities. Er.. after my supervision experience with a PhD candidate from Africa, er … I am no longer scared to supervise or teach any student from other countries. (KP-2)

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The fragments above highlight not just the initial ambivalence the lecturer held toward students from African background, but the interviewee also recognizes that the interactions with the student changed his previous perception of these students. African students are initially construed as possessing little or different capabilities and with economic rather than educational motivations. Furthermore, the lecturer indicates initial fear. This was then reconstructed and the lecturer indicates some level of personal transformation. Does no longer being scared imply openness and some degree of cultural relativism? One would hope so. Either way, there is transformation after prolonged contact with a student from Africa, according to the lecturer. Other constructions by the interviewees have to do with implementing policy and transformations that still need to occur. The quest for Estonia to attract a wide range of foreign talents through the internationalization of Estonia’s higher education means that cultural diversity would have to be taken seriously at these institutions and in the society in general. To this end, a question was asked about the effects of the increasing enrolment of international students, and how the universities have positioned themselves to manage the diversity that they are experiencing. In light of this, an administrator at UNI-2 observed: Well, … the number of international students in the university is increasing every year, but it is not that huge, er ... I think we definitely need to strategize on how to adapt into the changing trend. (JB-13)

At a first glance, it seems that the issue of managing the increasing numbers of international students is not taken that seriously. The increase is recognized though, however, what might “to strategize” mean? In the interview, the Estonian policy of attracting highly-skilled third countries nationals by focusing on recruiting talented students at the PhD and master’s degree levels resonates (European Migration Network, 2012; Prudencio, 2014). However, is there really political will and does this takes the students into account as something more than just economic resources? A question was posed to a domestic student to explore his feelings about being in the same class with students from other countries. In response, an Estonian undergraduate student in international relations at UNI-2 said: I feel okay studying with students who are not Estonians. Er … I think studying with international students offers me the opportunity to learn different perspectives. Er ... for instance, during this course we have had a lot of good examples from our colleagues from Asia and Africa. I personally think it is good to have a diverse class. (EJ-7)

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The research participant thinks that studying with international students could provide him with the opportunity to be exposed to different points of views or perspectives. This supports the idea that internalization is a vehicle to increase the level of tolerance and respect for cultural diversity. The student does recognize the potential of intercultural exchange, but still there is some instrumentalization of the cultural “other.” Theme 2: Fluidity and Tensions in Talent Mobility Our current world is often regarded as fluid and open. At the same time, borders close frontiers and create negative social representations about “others,” something that the quote below illustrates. Students who move to other parts of the world for knowledge and skills move with their cultural baggage: values, beliefs, norms, basic assumptions, and expectations among others. These values may be appreciated by the host university and society or not. Also, these values may be constructed as homogeneously belonging to a generalized other, or relativized. In this vein, some of the research participants were asked about their experience of interacting with students from different cultural backgrounds. In response, an Estonian lecturer at UNI-1 explained: One of the things I have noticed is handling the female Muslim students. They wear a headscarf and that creates certain distance, eer … you look at the person differently. Er … I know there are many restrictions in their lives, and what they can do or they can’t do. What they are allowed to eat and are not allowed to eat. (ME-1)

Here, the interviewee has highlighted the style of dressing of some female Muslim students. She thinks that their headscarf creates distance between “us” and “them.” The lecturers’ engagement with what her female Muslim students can eat, or cannot eat, of what they wear to class suggests a powerful social representation of “Muslims.” Apparently, social representations of “Muslims” create ambivalence, even within institutions of higher education which is supposed to encourage and appreciate diversity. This revelation is in keeping with the observation made by Yeoh and Huang (2011) which holds that international talent mobilized through education are hyper-fluid nomads, who can move effortlessly across frictionless global borders and spaces. Rather, the mobility of international talent is folded into sociocultural and political considerations. In this vein, the host universities and society might have to engage more deeply with diversity based on gender, race, religion, and ethnic difference among others.

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Further analysis of the data revealed that lecturers believe that the students have different educational cultures. A lecturer at the UNI-2 observed: Er … one difference things I have experienced is that students from Asia and Africa are not so self-directed. They want everything to be eeer … commanded to them, they want to be told everything, and they are always very worried that eeer … the teacher may feel bad when they do something wrong. (HH-3)

These interview data suggest that Estonian lecturers perceive important cultural differences with students from Africa and Asia. Supposedly, the latter are brought up in an education culture where there is a dependence relationship between students and lecturers. That is, where the lecturers are seen as providers of knowledge and giving both direction and motivation to their students. In the context of Estonia, the role of the lecturer is to guide the students, and the students are supposed to be quite independent. Related to the same question, another research participant, a lecturer at the UNI-1 observed something very different: It is an interesting experience for me, and I think for the students as well. I think I have learned as much from them, and they also learned from me because getting to know different contexts that you normally don’t read a lot about, you don’t know a lot about. Er … our education is certainly Europe-centred, or perhaps with influences also from Anglophone countries and some countries like that, but we don’t really know that much about what is happening in other countries in the world, especially the countries that are outside of Europe. (ME-1)

The quote underscores the importance of internationalizing education in terms of mutual teaching and learning, which takes place between the lecturers and international students. In this vein, the mobility of talents through international education creates sites for shared learning where the cultural productions of the mobile students and their lectures can be negotiated and constructed for the potential mutual benefits of the individual participants. Furthermore, this is the kind of transformation potentially benefitting the host universities and societies. The different actors mentioned above indicate, however, that initial ambiguity, stereotypes and cultural essentialization might be a hindrance. Concerning the difficulties faced by the international students in the host universities, one of the participants, a Nigerian PhD candidate at UNI-1 noted: Even though most of the Estonian students and lecturers know how to speak English, in most cases they speak Estonian, er.... Again, the difficult

Exploring the Tensions and Possible Transformations   221 part is that some of the recommended literature is in Estonian. Er ... the official language of instruction for the course is English, but some models are taught with teaching instruction in Estonian. (BO-8)

Recommending Estonian study material to non-Estonians and teaching some of the international programs in Estonian language put the international students in a disadvantageous position. Many of the international students can neither read nor understand Estonian language. Furthermore, words, phrases and symbols used in a text written in Estonia might not have inherent meaning or meanings in English language or the languages of the non-Estonian students, as their meanings are derived from an Estonian context. Immediate and straightforward comprehension can hardly be expected from the international students. A Ghanaian student who graduated from the UNI-4 added: Well, in my Master’s program, we were not many in the class. Initially, we had two Estonians, but one dropped out and the class was left with one Estonian student. So, basically, I will say, he became the minority in this regard. Even though the class was an international class, mostly, e-mails were sent to us in Estonian language. I had to use Google translator to translate the e-mails to English in order to understand the content of the e-mails. (SA-10)

While sending electronic mails to the students concerning information about the course could be a good way to share information, sending the information to non-Estonian students in Estonian hardly achieves any communication between the non-Estonian students, the course administrators and the lecturers. Moreover, the non-Estonian students who used Google translator to translate the information are likely to receive the meaning in a distorted fashion. Google translator is unable to convey the exact messages from Estonian to English. This creates a communication gap between the senders and the non-Estonian students and the intended purpose for sending out the information is not likely to be achieved. CONCLUSION My study explored how participants identify ambivalence and tensions, but also sociocultural learning possibilities in their interaction with others from different backgrounds in the context of the increasingly culturally diverse university community in Estonia. While the interactions between international students from Sub-Saharan Africa and lecturers, academic support staff and domestic students provided opportunities for cultural transformations and expansion, tolerance, acceptance, and a cultural relativistic mind-set, the study also revealed misinterpretations due to differences in

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meaning construction and prevailing meaning systems about Africans and some African Muslim students. This could be explored further in a cultural psychological vein. The notion of proculturation is very suggestive in this regard. I set out to study the constructions and possible transformations among certain actors in talent mobility to develop recommendations. Some of these have already surfaced in my critical analyses and they align with the argument of Yeoh and Huang (2011). However, to develop recommendations this study has the limitation that it only covered some higher education institutions in Estonia and that international students from other regions were not considered. Specifically, students from Asia and Latin America could have offered different perspectives on the topic. Nevertheless, I would suggest that actors working with people from different backgrounds create more comprehensive strategies such as intercultural engagement and communication and cultural sensitivity to enhance meaning making between communities. If Estonia is to achieve the quest for attracting a wide range of foreign talents, through the internationalization of Estonia’s higher education, the sociocultural and political matrices for talent mobility and cultural diversity would have to be taken seriously at the higher education institutions. Also, the Estonia government should fashion out policies for retaining and integrating talent from both sociocultural and economic lenses. The sociocultural environment could be more welcoming for the talent migrants, enabling them to move beyond their feelings of isolation or anxiety from meeting the demands of the host culture, to feeling belonging and part of the receiving society. This way, universities and talent migration could become something more than exchanges of human and intellectual capital, but it could also become a way to transform and expand our communities. Besides, in a world where borders and social control increase tensions and rupture, perhaps engaging to enhance an understanding of cultures among the actors involved in talent mobility would also contribute toward this end. NOTE 1. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/3217494/8309812/KS-EI-17-001EN-N.pdf/b7df53f5-4faf-48a6-aca1-c650d40c9239

REFERENCES Andreouli, E., & Kadianaki, I (2018). Psychology and human mobility: Introduction to the special issue and ways forward. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 24(4), 383–388.

Exploring the Tensions and Possible Transformations   223 Appadurai, A. (1990). Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy. Theory, Culture and Society, 7, 295–310. Azman, N., Sirat, M., & Pang, V. (2016). Managing and mobilising talent in Malaysia: issues, challenges and policy implications for Malaysian universities. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 38(3), 316–332. Bennett, M. (2012). Turning cross-cultural contact into international learning. Proceedings of the Universidad 2012 8th International congress of higher education, The University for Sustainable Development. February 15, 2012. Havana, Cuba. Berry, J. W. (2001). A psychology of immigration. Journal of Social Issues, 57, 615–631. Berry, J. W. (2005). Acculturation: Living successfully in two cultures. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 29(6), 697–712. Berry, J. W. (2008). Globalization and acculturation. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 32(4), 328–336. Bhatia, S. (2002). Acculturation, dialogical voices and the construction of the diasporic self. Theory & Psychology, 12(1), 55–77. Bhatia, S., & Ram, A. (2009). Theorizing identity in transnational and diaspora cultures: A critical approach to acculturation. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 33(2), 140–149. Bryman, A. (2004). Social research methods. Oxford University Press. Cara, O. (2013). Acculturation strategies and ethno-national identification: A study of adolescents in Russian language schools in Riga (Unpublished PhD thesis). Creswell, J. W. (2009). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods approach (3rd ed.). SAGE. de Wit, H. (2015). Misconceptions about (the end of) internationalization. In E. Jones, R. Coelen, J. Beelen, & H. de Wit (Eds.), Global and Local Internationalization (pp. 15–20). Sense. European Migration Network. (2012). Attracting highly qualified and qualified third-country nationals in the European Union and Estonia. Estonian Academy of Security Sciences. European Migration Network. (2018). Attracting and retaining international student in the European Union. Estonian Academy of Security Sciences. Favell, A. (2008). The new face of East-West migration in Europe. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 34(5), 701–716. Florida, R. (2002). The economic geography of talent. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 92(4), 743–755. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8306.00314 Gamsakhurdia, V. (2018). Adaptation in a dialogical perspective: From acculturation to proculturation. Culture and Psychology, 24(4), 1–15. Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of culture. Basic Books. Glaeser, E. L., & Saiz, A. (2004). The rise of the skilled city. Brookings-Wharton Papers on Urban Affairs, 5, 47–94. Hawthorne, L. (2010). How valuable is “two-step migration”? Labor market outcomes for international student migrants to Australia. Asian and Pacific migration journal, 19(1), 5–36. Holliday, A., Hyde, M., & Kullman, J. (2004). Intercultural communication. An advance resource book. Taylor and Francis Group.

224  M. ABDULAI Iredale, R. (2005). Gender, immigration policies and accreditation: valuing the skills of professional women migrants. Geoforum, 36(2), 155–66. Kofman, E., & Raghuram, P. (2006). Women and global labour migrations: Incorporating skilled workers. Antipode, 38(2), 282–303. Kuada J. (2012). Research methodology: A project guide for university students: Samfunds Litteratur. Li, Z., & Lowe, J. (2016) Mobile student to mobile worker: the role of universities in the ‘war for talent’. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 37(1), 11–29. Musterd, S., & Gritsai, O. (2012). The creative knowledge city in Europe: Structural conditions and urban policy strategies for competitive cities. European Urban and Regional Studies, 20(3), 343–359. Nagel, C. (2005). Skilled migration in global cities from ‘‘other’’ perspectives: British Arabs, identity politics, and local embeddedness. Geoforum, 36(2). Naidoo, R. (2011). Rethinking development: Higher education and the new imperialism imperialism. In R. King, S. Marginson, & R. Naidoo (Eds.), Handbook on globalization and higher education (pp. 40–58). Edward Elgar. Naude, W. (2012) Migration, remittances and resilience in Africa (UNU-MERI) (Working Paper, No 2012-026). United Nations University. OECD. (2015). Education at a glance 2015: OECD indicators. Retrieved December 2018, from http://www.oecdilibrary.org/education/education-at-aglance_19991487 Prudencio, L. D. O. (2014). Highly-skilled migration: Estonia’s attraction policy and its congruence with the determinants of ‘talent mobility’. (Unpublished master`s thesis). Portes, A. (1987). One field, many views. Competing theories of international migration. In J. T. Fawcett & B. V. Carinos (Eds.), Pacific bridges: The new immigration from Asia and the Pacific Islands (pp. 53–70). Center for Migration Studies of New York. Redfield, R., Linton, R., & Herskovits, M. J. (1936). Memorandum for the study of acculturation. American Anthropologist, 38(1), 149–152. Rosa, C., & Tavares, S. (2013). Grasping the dialogical nature of acculturation. Culture and Psychology, 19(2), 273–288. Valsiner, J. (2012). Monuments in our minds. In M. Carretero, M. Asensio, & M. Rodriguez Moneo (Eds.), History education and the construction of identities (pp. 327–345). Information Age Publishing. Valsiner, J. (2013). Creating sign hierarchies: Social representation in its dynamic context. Papers on Social Representations. Retrieved June 2019, from http:// www.psych.lse.ac.uk/psr/ Valsiner, J. (2014). An invitation to cultural psychology. SAGE. Varner, I., & Beamer, L. (2011). Intercultural communication in the global workplace. McGraw-Hill/Irwin. Yeoh, B. S. A., & Huang, S. (2011). Introduction: Fluidity and friction in talent migration. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 37(5), 681–690.

CHAPTER 12

SELF-EXPANSION THROUGH PROCULTURATION Semiotic Movement Toward Curvilinear Development Vladimer Lado Gamsakhurdia

Human development is challenged by the intensification of life course twists and changes which are abundant in the contemporary world. Nowadays, people operate in very diverse environments and more frequently have to answer who they are and where are they heading in their lives. People are facing up to a freedom and need to make various choices, repeatedly. Even such a supposedly simple activity, as a visit to a market, might become a challenge as people face the need of making choices among numerous brands and types of products—it is not unusual to find a person stalled in front of a showcase nowadays. The increasing diversity of novel choices provokes a continuous proculturation (Gamsakhurdia, 2018a, 2019b) which becomes more and more complicated for people living in this day and age who are moving in-between various communities. It is widely accepted that the developmental features of any phenomenon can be observed more clearly during ruptures as they push persons out from their daily routine

Cultural Psychology in Communities: Tensions and Transformations, pp. 225–247 Copyright © 2020 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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(Brinkmann, 2017; Märtsin, 2010; Zittoun et al., 2018). Migration in particular makes the experience of the identity-making process visible and therefore it has become exactly the focus of our investigation (Andreouli & Kadianaki, 2018; Mahalingam, 2006). Migrants find themselves in foreign surroundings and have to deal with new people, rituals, traditions and the sociocultural environment in general. Proculturation is the process of the creative and subjective reconstruction of the self which is provoked by meeting novel social representations (Gillespie, 2008) and meanings in various sociocultural fields throughout the life course. Proculturation is conceived as the process which implies the intersection of sociocultural and personal processes and results in selfrenovation. There are no universal recipes defining life course trajectories as there are too many options on the way to equifinal points (Satō et al., 2016). Ambiguity is part of life (Boulanger, 2017; Marsico & Tateo, 2017). It is significant to understand how people go through the proculturation process navigating among various probable (familiar and unfamiliar) social representations and I-positions (Hermans & Gieser, 2011). Social representing processes (Valsiner & Cabell, 2011) link internal meaning-making processes to the sociocultural system and play a catalytic role in the identity-construction. Social representations play the role of external voices in the internal dialogue of the self (Gamsakhurdia, 2019b). Proculturation reflects the developmental and subjective nature of adaptation and emphasizes crucial points that have been missed by the fashionable, but widely criticized, acculturation research (Bhatia, 2002; Chirkov, 2009; Gamsakhurdia, 2018a, 2019). The notion of proculturation has its roots in Baldwin’s developmental theory in general and in the term of persistent imitation in particular (Valsiner, 2000). Proculturation is based on two axiomatic assumptions. First, culture is a social and semiotic construction which is created by humans in relation to their environment. It is a dynamic and alterable phenomenon which develops through human semiotic activity. Second, human subjectivity and the self are the stem of the developmental process while culture does not have agency. Proculturation, therefore, is the process which develops when a person meets novel artefact(s) (signs; social representations) and needs to make sense of them. It develops throughout the human experiencing during the entire life course. Because people encounter new ideas almost all the time while moving through irreversible time, proculturation seems to be a continuous process. Each moment of life might bring new experiences and semiotic food for proculturation. Acculturation research (Arends-Tóth & Van de Vijver, 2008; Rudmin, 2009; Sam & Berry, 2010), on the contrary, holds an essentialist stance and dismisses the role of human subjectivity and dynamics (Gamsakhurdia, 2019). Studies inspired by the work of John Berry inadequately assume

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that cultures and personalities are distinctive entities and disregard the relationality and interconnectedness of communities. Proculturation, on the other hand, emphasizes the importance of the subjective interpretation of any experience that is the base for personal and sociocultural development. Moreover, acculturation is oriented on the quantification of abstract attitudes and traits/orientations (Boski, 2008; Doucerain et al., 2013) while proculturation reflects lived experiences. Acculturation incarnates excessive sociocentrism and essentialist stability while proculturation emphasizes dynamic development and subjectivity. In order to better understand the psychological processes unfolding during proculturation in emigration, research data should be relevant to methodological and central cultural psychological theoretical assumptions (Josephs et al., 1999; Valsiner, 2017). Brinkman (2017) indicates the importance of overcoming a mechanic approach which dominates scientific psychology as mental phenomena are not nomic but normative. Studies in psychology should answer the question: Why do people feel/ think/act in a particular way? There is no sense in searching for mechanical causal connections because, life is not a billiard whereby hitting one ball, we can directly move another in a specific direction. Different people may react differently to the same reason or may react similarly to different stimuli. Culture is not an independent variable but the semiotic medium and field for human activity. Psychological processes are being formed through catalytic causality (Brinkmann, 2016, 2017; Valsiner, 2000) which implies dialectical synthesis through the interplay between various factors. This chapter elucidates sociocultural contexts and characteristics of a particular case of identity-construction through proculturation. It explores the identity-making process of a Georgian student, Giorgi, aged 22, who is living in emigration in Germany. The main purpose of this case study is to reveal regularities associated with proculturation and identity-construction in emigration. This study was grounded on the following axiomatic theoretical assumptions of the cultural psychology of semiotic dynamics (CPSD) (Valsiner, 2017) and dialogical self theory (Hermans et al., 2017; Valsiner & Cabell, 2011): 1. Time irreversibility, which implies the recognition of the uniqueness of each moment of development. We obtain experience during each second of our lives which influences us and makes it impossible to return to previous points of development. It is important to avoid mechanical causal deductions and explore phenomena in the process of their development to grasp general and specific characteristics. Therefore, ever-developing data should be analyzed in a historical perspective which sets the context for human development. There is no need for a big number of data (Brinkmann, 2017) and

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as this study is developed in an abductive analytical approach even less so. The single case study is the basis for the elaboration of theoretical deductions and implications (Marková, 2017). 2. Psychological processes develop in-between persons and their sociocultural context. A person, as well as communities, are open systems and are related to the surrounding environment (Hermans & Gieser, 2011; Valsiner, 2014). Open systems interact with their environment, internalize and externalize meanings and function in a dynamic stability. 3. Humans are teleological creatures. Their activity is always intentional and directed to future goals and expectations (Gamsakhurdia, 2018b; Tateo, 2014). Present positions and attitudes obtain meaning in relation to the imagined future (as well as the past) time. Scientific investigation should focus on the revelation of humans’ aspirations as it is necessary for understanding their actions or feelings in the present.

METHODS The present case study consists of the investigation of the life course development of Giorgi (a pseudonym to preserve confidentiality). A Georgian student who was living in Germany, he was 22 years old at the moment of the interview. He was raised in Tbilisi, Georgia, and emigrated to Germany when he was 19. Georgia and Germany are meaningfully different countries, in terms of language, religion, sociopolitical situation, values, GDP-economy, geography, which supposedly strengthens the rupture effect. Giorgi had lived for more than 2 years in emigration by the time of the interview in late 2017. His identity-making process through proculturation will be explored below. Data Collection and Analysis Data were obtained by means of an episodic interview (Flick, 1999) which lasted 105 minutes and through additional desk-research concerning the sociocultural contexts that surrounded Giorgi’s development. Data were analyzed through the thematic analysis method (Rennie, 2012) with elements of semiotic analysis. The open coding of the data initiated the first line of analytical procedures. Subsequently, codes were categorized and several themes unifying related categories of meaningful codes were identified. Furthermore, a specific search for I-related meaningful entities

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(e.g., words, phrases, sentences) was conducted which aimed at the identification of the I-positions of the research participant’s dialogical self. After performing the initial phase of analysis, semiotic relations between various I-positions and themes were analyzed that allowed to explore the hierarchical structure of the dialogical self and the subtleties of meaningmaking processes related to the research participant’s identity-construction and proculturation. RESULTS The Research Participant’s Life Course and Sociocultural Context Giorgi’s life course consists of several phases. I provide a brief and approximate schematization of Giorgi’s realized life course in Figure 12.1 and will then discuss each phase in detail.

Figure 12.1.  Main milestones in Giorgi’s life course.

Noticeably, emigration was not the only transitional mental challenge that the research participant went through. Another meaningful transformation in his life was obtaining the new status of student and making the first steps on the way to an independent life, separate from his family. This had a specific catalytic importance and will be given particular attention in the subsequent analysis. Emigration was Giorgi’s first ever experience of living alone. He had never spent even a month out of his family home before. Furthermore, he had not had any meaningful communication or connection with Germans or other foreigners before emigration. So, it can be assumed that the fact of moving to Germany was a powerful twist in Giorgi’s life events. Giorgi had lived with his parents and siblings before moving to Germany and had regular communication and a very intimate connection with his grandparents and cousins. Such a picture is typical in Georgia, because living in extended families is the traditional norm to follow there. Noticeably, the strong connection with family is one of the main markers of

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Georgianness (Gamsakhurdia, 2017). Strong bonding with family and close relatives forms a significant part of the participant’s real-life context. Family members constitute meaningful external I-positions which stand high in the dialogical self ’s internal hierarchy (Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010) and play an important role in inner negotiations. The following external I-positions are the most salient: 1. 2. 3. 4.

the voice of (my) mother. the voice of (my) family in general the voice of friendship and friends. the voice of society/Georgianness.

These external I-positions play an enormous role for Giorgi’s self-definition and development. He negotiates all his feelings and thoughts in a dialogue with those voices. Mother’s voice holds special importance. Fragment 1 My mother loves me very much and worries a lot about me [Panikiori in Georgian jargon] … I am trying to behave in a way that wouldn’t make her upset, I want her to be happy, that makes me feel good. That doesn’t mean that I depend on her or something … I am independent and free, but I do not want my mother to worry …

This fragment reveals two things. First, it shows the strength of the mother’s voice inside the participant’s self-structure. And second, it indicates that the participant knows that there is another option of thinking and action, freer from his mother’s influence. Giorgi mentions personal independence and freedom; however, he did not fully realize this. His main motivation remains the desire to make his mother happy and prevent her from being worried. The participant’s personal feelings are directly associated with his mother’s state of mind. However, the fragment also reveals an unrealized parallel way of thinking and behavior which implies distancing from his mother and making his own choices. The latter option is silenced for a while due to the anticipation of undesired consequences (the mother’s panic) and deemed as inappropriate. In the following, it will become clear that this aspect sets the ground for some other meaningful life choices and actions. The main bifurcation points (Satō et al., 2016) are associated with the dialogue with his parents and, first of all, with the direct influence of his mother’s voice. Giorgi made three main decisions in his life so far. First, he moved from one secondary school to another. Second, he applied for higher education.

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Third, he applied for a higher education abroad and decided to emigrate to Germany. Fragment 2 Interviewer: Could you reminisce about the main decisions made in your life? Important moments of your life ... Giorgi: Hmm, what can I say.… For me it was very important to change school, in the 10th grade, I did not want to do that actually, as I had all my friends in the first school. However, my mother thought that the new school was more oriented on applying to foreign universities. It was better for my future. So, that was a really meaningful decision because it changed my social life. The other big decision was to move to Bremen. It is more prestigious to study abroad then at home (in Georgia). It will help finding a better job, especially if you are in economics or business. So, my mother suggested aaand … I decided so. She was very proud. I was very happy … I decided to go to Germany and not to the US, however, to be near to my family. From Germany, it’s much easier to fly home in case …

Giorgi’s case shows that social representations are actively present inside the dialogical self ’s internal negotiations as external voices. The specific social representation of “prestige” can be identified as representing an important voice here. Prestige in the Georgian context is firmly associated with “foreignness”—literally everything that is from the West is perceived with relative piety. And, if anybody wants to say that something is good, he or she oftentimes says that it is of a Western-type. For example, in Georgia when people furnish their flats/home they say that they made a Euro-repair (evroremonti in Georgian) and you can find numerous ads of houses for sale with that description in order to appeal to clients. To be clear, these repairs have no connection with European architecture, interior design or fashion and there is nothing specific or standard behind that adjective—it is just a semiotic device for expressing a certain aspect of “prestige.” In this study, the social representation of “prestige” is an important external societal voice which pushes Giorgi to get an education in Europe as it is supposed to be beneficial not only in terms of getting better education and chances for self-realization, but also to increase his cultural capital (Bourdieu, 2008). Therefore, this is an instance of an interrelation between personal and societal processes. The realized life trajectory from the beginning was oriented on the main midterm life goal of getting an education abroad. However, there could also be the alternative possibility of getting an

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education in Georgia (in a particular university) or not to get a higher education at all. Fragment 3 Interviewer: Let me ask when and how you decided to get a higher education? Giorgi: Hm…. It was kind of always implied…. In my family everyone has a higher education. Interviewer: So, you had conversations about it in the family? Giorgi: Not that somebody obliged me, I want it myself. Interviewer: So, there weren’t any talks and you just decided to get a higher education? What was your motivation? Giorgi: Not that I decided suddenly. There were talks in the family about what is best, which profession to choose…. My mother thought that it would be better to study abroad and something like business or economy. I don’t remember the exact moment but it was always on mind since I was in 6-7th grade. I even never thought or considered not to apply. I could not imagine that. In Georgia, everybody gets a higher education…. If not, other people would think that you are not good enough … Interviewer: Why did you decide to study abroad? Giorgi: It provides more chances to get a better job. Studying in Germany is more prestigious. You know? It was even easier for me to get to Germany than it would have been to get in a good Georgian business school, there is a big competition…. The opportunity to live in Germany is also cool, you know, my mother wanted to separate me from some of my friends who she thought were having a bad influence on me, so that was another reason…. She is very happy now. I am happy, too.

This fragment indicates a contradiction between the mother’s and the friends’ voices. This contradiction creates another bifurcation point in personal development and further reveals the dominant role of the parent(s) voice. It is not the main motivation but Giorgi’s parents sent him to Germany to avoid the “bad influence” of his ‘deviant’ friends. That tension is silenced for the time being as he is abroad and does not need to make decisions in favor of his parents’ or his friends’ voice while he is away from both of them. The father’s voice is somewhere in the background of the dialogical self and not very actively expressed.

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It appears that the self develops in terms of the existence of different possible trajectories of advancement concerning various parts of life— location, profession, social life, education. There are tensions between particular voices that are in competition with each other. Giorgi’s self had a clear hierarchical structure dominated by his mother’s voice and his family, in general. However, it is also clear that the emigration led to particular modifications. Self-Expansion in Emigration Moving abroad was a huge rupture in Giorgi’s life. As I have already mentioned, Giorgi’s emigration was his first experience ever of leading an independent life. Emigration pushed him out of his “comfort zone” that could possibly challenge his home-grown self-perception. So, Giorgi went through the double transition process from social embeddedness to total personal autonomy, on one side, and from living in a Georgian community to Germany, on the other. Fragment 4 Giorgi: I had never lived alone in my life before I moved here. Always somebody was with me, even during holidays. This is an incredible experience.... At first, I was a bit nervous as it was not easy to do everything on my own, but it helped me to develop personally and now I feel great, I am more independent and self-sufficient.

Giorgi experienced an unknown environment. The first period of emigration was quite difficult and “stressful” as he describes. He started taking care of himself, cleaning, cooking, organizing all his possessions, something which was not the case in Georgia. He had to redefine his own role and obtain new habits and capacities. Proculturation resulted in the formation of a new internal I-position: “I as an independent (person).” This is an example of the self ’s expansion through the embracing of existing conditions and resources (Boulanger, 2017). The participant compares the kind of person he was when he was living in Georgia to who he has become after living in Germany. Two I-positions appear “I (myself) in Georgia” and “I (myself) in Germany.” Each of them is associated with different characteristics and they are negotiated in the process of identity construction. The former represents social embeddedness and an interdependent nature while the latter emphasizes self-sufficiency and autonomy. “Myself in Georgia” activates during communication with family. However, in Germany “Myself in Germany” dominates.

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The next question which naturally arises is how do previously existing interrelated I-positions operate in a new condition and in relation with a newly formed sense of independence—“I as independent.” It would be reasonable to suppose that the voices related to dependence on his family would be softened while being away in emigration. However, this turned out to be not entirely true. Mother’s voice continues to be significant after two years of living abroad. Giorgi says that he speaks with her almost every day by Skype and fills her in about ongoing activities. They share and discuss almost everything with each other. He is still strongly influenced by possible reactions of his mother on (his) actions. He tries to behave in a way that would be generally acceptable for her, “not to panic her” as he expressed literally. It may seem that her possibly too emotional reaction serves as a justification of his dependence on her. That is, if we look at this situation from what is often stereotypically called a Western perspective that values personal freedom and success over collective goals. However, if we look at this situation from Giorgi’s personal perspective, his own happiness is directly related to his family relations and his mother’s feelings first of all. So, rather, his mother’s feelings serve as a constructed catalytic condition for Giorgi’s personal well-being. I assume that it is a classic picture of the extended self and the incorporation of external I-positions—his mother’s voice is an integral voice of Giorgi’s dialogical self. Her voice is placed very high in the dialogical self ’s hierarchical structure. Her worries, dreams and emotions are perceived as truly his own, even after years of (mostly) physical separation. The participant also indicates other meaningful and traditional “Georgian” I-positions that are important for his internal dialogue and continue to be important after years of living abroad. For example, “I as a friend” and “my childhood friends.” These two voices are interrelated and essentially represent different aspects of the same phenomenon. In Georgia, it is the norm to maintain strong bonds with childhood friends during one’s whole life—they are regarded as equal to brothers and sisters. There is a special compound word in the Georgian language which signifies close friends and which involves the word brother or sister depending on the friend’s gender: dzmakatsi signifies a brother-man and dakali a sister-woman. Being someone’s friend is a meaningful part of Giorgi’s dialogical self. He constructs actions, feelings and goals in a way that fits his “friendliness” (or “I as a good friend”) and related expectations. The latter becomes possible through listening to the external voices of friends involved in an internal dialogue. Physical separation and a lack of direct physical contact does not loosen the friendship bond between Giorgi and his friends to any significant degree. He says that they meet occasionally and maintain almost permanent contact and often fill each other in about ongoing events. Noticeably, technological developments have softened the

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burden of living abroad and being separated from families. It has become much easier to maintain audio/video communication with them by various internet messengers. This is one of the contextual factors that makes it easier to maintain basic pre-emigrational semiotic structures, though not unchangeably, of course (Mahalingam, 2006). Giorgi did not have the experience of meeting foreigners while living in Georgia. He just had fragmented accidental meetings with tourists or ethnic minorities but no experience of living with foreigners. After migrating to Germany, he lives in a student dorm, sharing a flat with several flatmates from various countries. His course-mates are from many different countries. He says that initially he was quite open to communicate with foreigners but real experiences occurred to be even more meaningful than he could have imagined. The experience of a common daily routine—eating, washing, watching TV, going out—provided him with new bodily sensations associated with foreigners and increased his acceptance of diversity. While his openness before moving abroad was just theoretical, now he obtained actual lived-experience with foreigners. Simply stated, he now physically touched and embraced them. This is another way in which his self expanded during proculturation in Germany. Fragment 5 Giorgi: When I came here, I knew that everybody is human and all this stuff…. But you know when I had dinner for the first time with my flatmate from Nepal, it was something new, a new feeling kind of…. You know, there is something that you know theoretically, but when you experience it in real life, it is something different. I am much more open to difference now, however, I was always open even before … now I kind of differently feel it, I have this acceptance in a different way.

The Self Facing Plurality Giorgi tells about several unexpected and surprising experiences that he had after leaving Georgia. First, he found out that “Germany is not Germany at all”—as it is a diverse conglomerate of people and ideas that you meet on the daily basis. It is hard to define what is what is not German when shawarma, a dish with Turkish ingredients and invented by ethnic Turkish people, is widely regarded as part of German cuisine and coexists with Arabic falafel which, at the same time, fits perfectly with the vegetarian food trend. He mentioned only trivial things about Germans, like punctuality and a higher level of development. Giorgi stated that he cannot distinguish specific German cultural markers even after two years of living

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in the country. It indicates the fusion of symbolic boundaries which faces him in an environment full of diverse cultural elements. Fragment 6 Giorgi: You know, I live here for more than two years, but cannot say much about Germany, I do not even know what that is…. So many different people here, I mean foreigners but…. You know not all Germans are the same…. There is only one difference that I noticed, family and parents are more important for us. One of my friends was very surprised when I said that I am talking with my family almost every day. However, there are also Germans who may have a strong connection with family. And, there are people from so many cultures here…. It is really difficult to talk about them as something unified ...

The participant’s dialogical self expands in another direction as his view on the world transforms meaningfully. He realized that there is no such thing as a homogeneous and unified German culture. He had to negotiate diverse new social representations and experiences that were available in the foreign environment instead. As a result of this experience, Giorgi classified the universe in two: first, Georgia and, second, the rest of the world. The latter category involves Germany: it is not a separate category. In a sense, the self is perceived in the context of the opposition between Georgia(ness) and the rest of the world. Giorgi negotiates a sundry of meanings and life trajectories in the context of this imagined antagonism. These diffused meanings and practices include the whole world, not a particular (distinctive) culture. The world is not an aggregate of clear-cut ethnocultural identities; rather, it offers an ambiguous and incoherent fusion of various ideas and practices. Giorgi’s dialogical self had to adapt and expand in the process of acquainting with new knowledge, tastes, habits, rituals. Similarity Matters In order to understand the changes through the self ’s proculturation, it is important to explore the communicative practice/experience of the participant. Giorgi indicates that he communicates with people from various backgrounds, yet he managed to establish a close friendship only with other Georgian emigrants. He says that it is typical among migrant communities living in Bremen to team up with people of a similar background as it facilitates their (in-group) communication. Giorgi feels most comfortable communicating with Georgians as he feels he is more easily understood by them. He indicates that they have a special friendship and bonding

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that is not possible with other people. Giorgi’s thoughts, feelings, and actions are driven by the specific Georgian social representation of humans’ mutual obligations, in general, and of friendship, in particular. This social representation emphasizes strong bonding, interdependence, and social embeddedness as among its highest values. These social representations serve as meta-positions inside Giorgi’s dialogical self and frames/organize interpretations of ongoing experiences. Any kind of communication and friendliness from foreigners that does not involve expressive selflessness and self-sacrifice does not fit the Georgian social representation of friendship and causes a dissatisfaction in the participant. This selflessness might be expressed in particular situations—to help with money, in fights, at work—and in the obligation to share everything. Giorgi indicates that Europeans are friendly and very helpful but they are not invested that much in friendship and his expectations fueled by social representations remain unrealized while communicating with them. So, this particular social representation causes tension with social representations of friendliness that are foreign to Giorgi. Fragment 7 Giorgi: Nepalese people are together, as well as Arabs, Turkish, Italians, Latinos and others. Everybody makes groups with similar people who speak a similar language and have similar traditions … that makes relations easier. I have one Mexican friend and one German; however, my closest friend is Georgian. Generally, Georgians also stick together …

Moreover, we can see that Giorgi’s life in emigration develops in the process of striving for specific goals and aspirations that catalytically influence his self-definition. Future Orientedness—Embracing Uncertainty Future expectations and aspirations play a major role in the evaluation of current and past experiences (Brinkmann, 2017). Humans are intentional and goal-directed agents (Gamsakhurdia, 2018b; Rosa & Valsiner, 2018; Tateo, 2016). Of course, past experiences also influence the construction of future expectations. The experience of living abroad alters the previous perception of the world and the future. Foreign signs and novelties in general become not only acceptable but sometimes even desirable. Generally, people are interested in novelties but in Giorgi’s case, such a need becomes more visible and even resembles a kind of addiction as the need for moving to new places again and again appears. That fresh

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sensation of novelty beckons the self—it makes him feel in motion and alive. Giorgi becomes a “novelty addict.” This leads to more tolerance of uncertainty, which comes to be regarded as more of an opportunity than a threat. Of course, uncertainty is only acceptable up to some level—nobody (hopefully) wants to put his head into the lion’s mouth. Life in general is always partially uncertain. Giorgi’s case shows that the experience of emigration makes him more accustomed to this game of uncertainty, novelties, diversity, and pushes toward further endeavors. He even strives for further ruptures in his life. Fragment 8 Interviewer: Can you tell me about your plans? Giorgi: I want to try something new. Bremen is great, but I already know everything here, I will try to go somewhere else. I know that it is a challenge but I can deal with it. I do not know exactly, maybe to Munich, Berlin, Dortmund or maybe to France or England. Interviewer: Do you know what are you going to do there? A concrete plan or something? Do you know anybody there? Giorgi: No, actually. I am graduating in a year, so will search for some options in the coming months. I already have some options ready for an internship and work in Bremen, but as I said I want something new. It’s more fun. Interviewer: What about Georgia? Giorgi: I am not going to live there now as Europe is better for my professional development. I plan to go back to Georgia when I am much older and more successful to contribute to development there, to bring knowledge and help people, but that is a far distant future, not for now.

While talking about future goals, it is necessary to refer to the role of Giorgi’s parents again. Besides wanting to succeed personally, he wants to make his parents proud of him. The latter is one of the strongest among his motivations. In the form of the external voice, societal influence becomes part of his personal aspiration. Fragment 8 reveals one specific goal which constitutes the zone of distant development (Gamsakhurdia, 2018b): to do something valuable for the homeland in the distant future. Another life goal of Giorgi’s is to have his own family—a wife and children. Actually, this is one of the markers of Georgianness (Gamsakhurdia, 2017)—a person

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is never regarded as mature in Georgia unless he or she is married. This requirement creates a sound societal voice in Giorgi’s self. Fragment 9 I do not have a partner for now, but I want create my own family for sure. I want to raise children. When I am ready and meet the right girl.

Giorgi maintains traditionally Georgian life goals oriented on social embeddedness, while constructing individualist objectives oriented on personal success and development. Having purposes that form an oppositional tensional couple leads to the creative reconstruction of the self. Curvilinearization of Development Giorgi came to Germany with a previously formed set of I-positions which reveal social embeddedness, the highest importance of family identity (“I as son/sibling”) and ethnic belongingness (“I as Georgian”; “I as patriot of Georgia”). Acculturation researchers would assume that he would have to either maintain or reject this set of home-grown positions after emigrating to Germany—in combination with accepting or rejecting the host culture as a whole (Berry, 2005). As we can see, this is not the case with Giorgi. He brings some old meanings with him in emigration and reconstructs them in the light of the new experience. Giorgi interprets some social representations that he creates while living in Germany in a specific way. The incorporation of new social representations did not imply an unconditional acceptance of them—as it goes only through the filter of interpretation. Neither foreign nor “heritage” social representations and I-positions are left unaltered as they are reconstructed through internal negotiations. Giorgi’s dialogical self is being changed through the permanent negotiations of oneself and the sociocultural environment. Fragment 10 Giorgi: I want to experience different things. I do not feel attached to one place anymore, more like a world citizen … I am Georgian of course but … I don’t know. It’s difficult.

The fragment reveals that Giorgi’s self-categorization level moves up as he starts to perceive himself as a world citizen (“I as a world citizen”). However, he keeps a mental connection with the homeland and its values as well. However, his Giorgi defines himself as Georgian—“I as

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Georgian”—and as “I as a world citizen” at the same time. These seemingly contradictory I-positions coexist inside his self and creates ambivalence and internal tension. Yet, this threat is neutralized by the specific interpretation of subjective historical remembering (Wagoner, 2011). He states that Georgians are historically humanistic and tolerant and that his globalized identity perfectly fits Georgianness. This way, Giorgi avoids tension between I-positions. His globalized identity allows him to more flexibly switch between traditional Georgianness and the individualist aspirations that he constructed in emigration. Therefore, development through proculturation obtains a curvilinear form and results in the creation of new forms of meanings and subjective interpretations of realized or imaginary experiences. Figure 12.2 illustrates the process of curvilinearization of development of binary linear oppositions.

Figure 12.2.  Curvilinearisation of the line of development.

DISCUSSION Life abroad is a very challenging experience and provokes the active proculturation of the dialogical self. I argue that it is important to go beyond the research of attitudes toward acculturation orientations and study the lived experiences of proculturation. It is important to reflect how people make sense of their experiences of living abroad and understand how it influences developmental processes in general. The question is not whether the heritage or the host culture wins, but how they interact through dialogical processes within the self. This chapter discussed a case study of a proculturative experience of a young Georgian male, aged 22, who had lived in Germany for more than two years at the moment of the interview. The discussion has demonstrated the subtleties of his self ’s development.

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Giorgi’s self-structure is hierarchical and particular I-positions hold major and even dominating positions while others are inferior. Particular social representations serve as meta-positions and direct meaning-making processes and related feelings. Leading positions are held by the voices of a close group of people. Giorgi’s self-perception and satisfaction are directly related to his mother’s real or imagined reactions. His mother’s external position/voice plays a decisive role in making various decisions. The strength of his mother’s voice is reinforced by the social representation of motherliness which is dominant among Georgian-speaking people and emphasizes the mother’s sacred and supreme role/status (Gamsakhurdia, 2017). Another significant I-position of Giorgi’s self is associated with the social representation of friendliness. The voice of friends and the related internal I-position “I as a friend” are presented at slightly lower positions within the hierarchy as compared to family members, though they still possess a high significance. The voices of his mother and his friends operate peacefully and do not cause much tension while Giorgi is abroad as there is no need to make a choice between them. Yet, they may clash in case he returns to Georgia and they cause internal tensions. To study this possibility, I plan to interview former emigrants who returned to Georgia or conduct a longitudinal study with participants like Giorgi. However, this is a task for the future. Dominant voices of close people from Georgia maintain their significance even after years of Giorgi’s emigration. He still maintains frequent and meaningful communication with family and friends. He is still closer to people with whom he left behind in Georgia than with new acquaintances in Germany. However, it does not mean that the self has remained unaltered since emigration; on the contrary, Giorgi indicates quite meaningful changes that are seen in his self-reflection. Self-Expansion Through Proculturation Giorgi’s self expanded meaningfully by constructing new meanings, different from both German (host) or Georgian (heritage) cultural elements. The experience of living and having direct communication with foreign people provided new funds for identity (Esteban-Guitart & Moll, 2014; Zittoun, 2018) and provoked creative mediation processes which resulted in the reconstruction of his dialogical self. Giorgi embraced the surprisingly wide diversity he discovered in Germany. However, he did not abandon his original Georgian identity and constructed a new reconciliating I-position: “I as a world citizen.” To not accept either a German/host identity and not to keep a standard/particularistic Georgian identity—he went beyond both of them and formed a more person-centered (not to be confused

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with so-called individualism) and humanistic global identity. The newly formed I-position (“I as a world citizen”) is the expression of the highest level of self-categorization (Hermans et al., 2017; Turner et al., 1994) and essentially represents the fusion of novel interpretations and attitudes. For example, this leads to the establishment of more humanistic positions like “I am the same as everyone” and “We are all from the same planet.” Proculturation is revealed exactly in these reconstruction of Giorgi’s relation to his homeland, to host communities and to oneself which are expressed in the reconstruction of the dialogical self structure and the appearance of innovative social representations and I-positions. Noticeably, Giorgi maintains an emotional attachment to his mother; however, at the same time, he develops a new I-position signifying more personal autonomy—“I as an independent person.” This new I-position is not something that is taken from German culture but developed due to objective real-life necessity—it would have developed even if Giorgi, like Robinson Crusoe, would have migrated to an uninhabited island. Therefore, I assume that the new I-position appears in relation to the environmental challenges or just conditions – not simply by blindly taking it from the ready-made box of options. The fact of emigration provokes self-reconstruction due to the necessity to adapt to new conditions. Sociocultural elements create an environmental medium during negotiation with new conditions of the physical separation from family, home, and homeland. Proculturation develops as through the process of the subjective construction and reconstruction of meanings. Interestingly, new globalist I-positions coexist with older positions like “I as a true Georgian” and “I as a patriot of Georgia.” This contradiction is solved by creating a new interpretation in the form of the third position (Hermans & Gieser, 2011): “I am humanist as all Georgians are” or formulated in other way “I am a Georgian humanist.” The latter solution softens tension and allows internal coherence. This enhances the flexibility and the creativity of the self. This indicates the curvilinearization of human development in the process of proculturation. Giorgi categorizes the world in two cultural entities: homeland, which is more specific and differentiated, and the (whole) other world, including the host country, which comes to be understood in more general terms. The research participant could not distinguish or describe distinctive features of the host German society/culture because it seems very heterogeneous to him. The perception of vagueness and a lack of awareness about Germanness is by no means an indication of the existence of separation orientation (Berry, 2005). On the contrary, Giorgi actively tries to communicate and learn about Germanness as much as possible. He attends various meetings, tries to communicate with locals and is involved in the local life. However, the only thing he finds is the interrelated net of diverse

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cultural elements. This is one of the catalytic conditions that strengthens the I-position: “I as a world citizen.” It also reveals that attitudes toward the host environment do not necessarily coincide with the lived-experiences in it. The bidimensional theoretical framework of acculturation, which mainly measures attitudes toward heritage/foreign communities (Boski, 2008), is inadequate for grasping the subtleties of person-centered developmental processes. This case strengthens the existing criticism that Berry’s theoretical framework measures only desired orientations of acculturation while dismissing real life conditions and human experiences (Doucerain et al., 2013; Gamsakhurdia, 2019). I think that it should be crucial to explore and understand lived experiences and their meaning for people if we want to understand semiotic dynamics in its full sense. Moreover, another important implication from this study is that cultures are visibly overlapping in front of our eyes. Brinkmann (2017) reminds us that science should operate only by those terms which are in connection with real life experiences. Acculturation research is clearly not among them as no one can find bounded, distinctive, isolated, and homogeneous cultures even if one tries very hard. The abstract notion of acculturation to foreign cultures does not have any ground under its feet at the individual level and might be useful only for looking at macro-level group dynamics. On the other hand, the term proculturation allows us to grasp the creative and developmental nature of human experience. It signifies the personcentered reconstructive process which unfolds in relation to the diverse foreign world where no culture or group has clear boundaries. Acceptance of Ambiguity Life in Germany influenced Giorgi’s attitudes toward novelties and ambiguities. Emigration made him take care of himself independently for the first time in his life as he had been living under the roof, care and protection of his family prior to emigration. At first, Giorgi was stressed and intimidated by newly obtained responsibilities. However, as soon as he managed to overcome them, his attitudes became more positive. He is much more positive toward changes and unknown environments and now, after two years of independent life in Bremen, he is even bored with it and strives for new challenges, ambiguities, and opportunities. He wants to move to a new place despite having good job opportunities in an environment he is already well-accustomed to. Nevertheless, we should remember that self-expansion is not always overwhelming and absolute as there might be meanings which may reveal more stability and maintain their position in the dialogical self structure. In the case of Giorgi, the social representation of friendship and friendli-

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ness represents a strong voice which influences his views and evaluations of relations with peers in Germany. Giorgi is unsatisfied by his communication with locals and other emigrants which do not fit his Georgian way of dedicative friendship and the need for emotional bonding with mates. So, the movement toward self-expansion is accompanied by the tendencies of self-preservation. Orientation on the Future Giorgi’s future aspirations provide motivation for present actions. He has a dream to become a big businessman and help people in Georgia. The latter is directly related with the I-position—“I as a patriot of Georgia”— which serves as a catalytic condition and provokes the formation of related long-term goals in the zone of distant development (Gamsakhurdia, 2018b). This goal increases his motivation to study hard and work for a very low salary doing internships at every opportunity. These goals also facilitate the justification of his emigration and the fact that he is not going to return to land of his youth (if ever) because there are more chances for professional development in Western Europe than in Georgia for the time being. This goal is also related to his previously discussed dominant desire to make his parents proud of him. Moreover, we can observe that Giorgi has separate goals for the shortterm (extended present) period and for the zone of distant development. His desire for immediate personal development is more tangible and may play a stabilizing or a destabilizing role in the (extended) present time. Distant goals which lie in the zone of distant development are densely associated with such I-positions as “I as patriot” and “I as a Georgian humanist” and aim to help people in Georgia. Distant goals provide Giorgi with a motivation and a sense to life. A person can more willingly meet his daily challenges when he has something to believe in and to strive toward. CONCLUSIONS Research shows that migration is a very specific rupturing experience and provokes proculturation that is a multivocal and constructive process. It does not cause a rejection or an acceptance of any culture but leads to constructive personal development and self expansion through their creative reconciliation. New I-positions are being created and “older” ones reconstructed in this process. In the case of contradictions, new meta-positions are formed which resolve existing oppositions. Proculturation revealed to be a developmental process which unfolds through the

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interplay between (multiple) societal and personal positions. It results in a subjective reevaluation of existing attitudes and the construction of new ones toward the surrounding world and oneself. This is the process which a person develops in relation to home, host, and other possible contexts. Studying proculturation allowed to grasp the person-centered process of identity-construction and the power of human ingenuity, which was revealed through meaning-making experiences in migration. NOTES 1. The interview was conducted and transcribed in Georgian and only subsequently translated into English by the author of this chapter. 2. This figure was suggested by Jaan Valsiner during a conversation.

REFERENCES Andreouli, E., & Kadianaki, I. (2018). Psychology and human mobility: Introduction to the special issue and ways forward. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 24(4), 383–388. https://doi.org/10.1037/pac0000365 Arends-Tóth, J., & Van de Vijver, F. J. R. (2008). Family relationships among immigrants and majority members in the Netherlands: The Role of Acculturation. Applied Psychology, 57(3), 466–487. https://doi.org/10.1111/ j.1464-0597.2008.00331.x Berry, J. W. (2005). Acculturation: Living successfully in two cultures. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 29(6), 697–712. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. ijintrel.2005.07.013 Bhatia, S. (2002). Acculturation, dialogical voices and the construction of the diasporic self. Theory & Psychology, 12(1), 55–77. https://doi. org/10.1177/0959354302121004 Boski, P. (2008). Five meanings of integration in acculturation research. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 32(2), 142–153. https://doi.org/10.1016/J. IJINTREL.2008.01.005 Boulanger, D. (2017). Expansion of parents’ undetermined experience in socioeducational programs: Extending the dialogical self theory. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 51(4), 557–569. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s12124-017-9403-9 Bourdieu, P. (2008). The forms of capital. In Readings in economic sociology (pp. 280–291). Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470755679.ch15 Brinkmann, S. (2016). Methodological breaching experiments: Steps toward theorizing the qualitative interview. Culture and Psychology, 22(4), 520–533. https:// doi.org/10.1177/1354067X16650816 Brinkmann, S. (2017). Persons and their minds: Towards an integrative theory of the mediated mind. Routledge.

246  V. L. GAMSAKHURDIA Chirkov, V. (2009). Critical psychology of acculturation: What do we study and how do we study it, when we investigate acculturation? International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 33(2), 94–105. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2008.12.004 Doucerain, M., Dere, J., & Ryder, A. G. (2013). Travels in hyper-diversity: Multiculturalism and the contextual assessment of acculturation. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 37(6), 686–699. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. ijintrel.2013.09.007 Esteban-Guitart, M., & Moll, L. C. (2014). Funds of Identity: A new concept based on the Funds of Knowledge approach. Culture and Psychology, 20(1), 31–48. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354067X13515934 Flick, U. (1999). Social constructions of change: Qualitative methods for analysing developmental processes. Social Science Information, 38(4), 631-658. https:// doi.org/10.1177/053901899038004007 Gamsakhurdia, V. L. (2017). Quest for ethnic identity in the modern world—The Georgian case. Cogent Social Sciences, 3(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/23311886 .2017.1309735 Gamsakhurdia, V. L. (2018a). Adaptation in a dialogical perspective—From acculturation to proculturation. Culture and Psychology, 24(4), 545–559. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354067X18791977 Gamsakhurdia, V. L. (2018b). Constructive urge for self-presentation-mediating between the past and the future. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-018-9466-2 Gamsakhurdia, V. L. (2019a). Proculturation: Self-reconstruction by making “fusion cocktails” of alien and familiar meanings. Culture & Psychology, 25(2), 161–177. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354067X19829020 Gamsakhurdia, V. L. (2019b). Making identity, proculturation in-between Georgianness and Westernness. Hu Arenas, 2, 356–377. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s42087-019-00062-0 Gillespie, A. (2008). Social representations, alternative representations and semantic barriers. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 38(4), 375–391. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5914.2008.00376.x Hermans, H. J. M., & Gieser, T. (Eds.). (2011). Handbook of dialogical self theory. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139030434 Hermans, H., & Hermans-Konopka, A. (2010). Dialogical self theory: Positioning and counter-positioning in a globalizing society. Cambridge University Press. Hermans, H., Konopka, A., Oosterwegel, A., & Zomer, P. (2017). Fields of tension in a boundary-crossing world: Towards a democratic organization of the self. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 51(4), 505–535. https://doi. org/10.1007/s12124-016-9370-6 Josephs, I. E., Valsiner, J., & Surgan, S. E. (1999). The process of meaning construction: Dissecting the flow of semiotic activity. In R. M. Lerner & J. Brandtstadter (Eds.), Action & self-development: Theory and research through the life span (pp. 257–282). SAGE. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781452204802.n9 Mahalingam, R. (2006). Cultural psychology of immigrants. Routledge. Marková, I. (2017). A fabricação da teoria de representações sociais [The making of the theory of social representations]. Cadernos de Pesquisa, 47(163), 358–375. https://doi.org/10.1590/198053143760

Self-Expansion Through Proculturation   247 Marsico, G., & Tateo, L. (2017). Borders, tensegrity and development in dialogue. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 51(4), 536–556. https://doi. org/10.1007/s12124-017-9398-2 Märtsin, M. (2010). Rupturing otherness: Becoming estonian in the context of contemporary Britain. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 44(1), 65–81. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-009-9109-8 Rennie, D. L. (2012). Qualitative research as methodical hermeneutics. Psychological Methods, 17(3), 385–398. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0029250 Rosa, A., & Valsiner J. (Eds.). (2018). The Cambridge handbook of sociocultural psychology. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511611162 Rudmin, F. (2009). Constructs, measurements and models of acculturation and acculturative stress. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 33(2), 106–123. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2008.12.001 Sam, D. L., & Berry, J. W. (2010). Acculturation: When individuals and groups of different cultural backgrounds meet. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5(4), 472–481. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691610373075 Satō, T., Mori, N., & Valsiner, J. (2016). Making of the future: The trajectory equifinality approach in cultural psychology. Information Age Publishing. Tateo, L. (2014). Beyond the self and the environment: The psychological horizon. In J. Valsiner & K. R. Cabell (Eds.), The catalyzing mind (pp. 223–237). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8821-7_12 Tateo, L. (2016). Toward a cogenetic cultural psychology. Culture & Psychology, 22(3), 433–447. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354067X16645297 Turner, J. C., Oakes, P. J., Haslam, S. A., & McGarty, C. (1994). Self and collective: Cognition and social context. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20(5), 454–463. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167294205002 Valsiner, J. (2000). Culture and human development: An introduction. SAGE. https://doi. org/10.4135/9781446217924 Valsiner, J. (2014). An invitation to cultural psychology. SAGE. https://doi. org/10.4135/9781473905986 Valsiner, J. (2017). From methodology to methods in human psychology. Springer. https:// doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61064-1 Valsiner, J., & Cabell, K. R. (2011). Self-making through synthesis: Extending dialogical self theory. In H. J. M. Hermans & T. Gieser (Eds.), Handbook of dialogical self theory (pp. 82–97). Cambridge University Press. https://doi. org/10.1017/CBO9781139030434.007 Wagoner, B. (2011). Meaning construction in remembering: A synthesis of Bartlett and Vygotsky. In P. Stenner (Ed.), Theoretical psychology: Global transformations and challenges (pp. 105-114). Captus Press. Zittoun, T. (2018). symbolic resources and imagination in the dynamics of life. In A. Rosa & J. Valsiner (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of sociocultural psychology (pp. 178–204). Cambridge University Press. https://doi. org/10.1017/9781316662229.011 Zittoun, T., Levitan, D., & Cangiá, F. (2018). A sociocultural approach to mobile families: A case study. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 24(4), 424–432. https://doi.org/10.1037/pac0000313

CHAPTER 13

“APART FROM BEING TAUGHT, YOU TEACH YOURSELF” Appropriation and Religious Trajectories Among Children and Youth in a Toba/ Qom Neighborhood of Buenos Aires Mariana García Palacios

In this chapter I analyze the appropriations made by the children and youth from a Toba (Qom) neighborhood in Buenos Aires, Argentina, throughout their intercultural life experiences. Based on the systematic analysis of extensive historical-ethnographic fieldwork conducted since 2006, I have reconstructed their diverse formative experiences in their day-to-day lives and registered their religious trajectories, extending over a decade, within a framework of complex interethnic relations. Since Barth (1969) adopted a new approach to ethnic identities, much research has accounted for the ways in which ethnicity implies communal actions against a dominant group (Briones, 1998). Dietz (2003) proposes to define ethnicity as

Cultural Psychology in Communities: Tensions and Transformations, pp. 249–272 Copyright © 2020 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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250  M. GARCÍA PALACIOS the type organization of social groups, where their mechanisms of delimitation with other groups whom they interact with are defined by their members using distinctive features between the cultures that interact with one another, and these mechanisms tend to be presented with biological arguments such as kinship and lineage terminology. (p. 84)

Therefore, in addition to the organizational aspect of ethnicity within the field of social relations and power relations, there is a semantic-symbolic facet of ethnicity that is manifested through a sense of belonging to a “we.” In this sense, the Evangelio (literally translated, “Gospel”), is a social/religious movement that dialectally links elements of Pentecostal evangelism—notions of healing and spiritual gifts, glossolalia or the “gift of tongues,” and preaching about individualized religious experience—with traditional Toba beliefs and practices tied to shamanism (Wright, 2008; Ceriani Cernadas & Citro, 2005). The need to manage internal diversity requires that the members of a community constantly negotiate the culturally-validated meanings (Dietz, 2003). That is why, despite differences and tensions between the neighborhood’s three churches of the Evangelio, there remains a certain internal organization in which the strongest distinction is with Catholicism. For the Toba people, Catholics represent the absolute other and their view of Catholics is dialectally defined by the ethnic dimension (the Evangelio is Qom while Catholicism is Doqshe, “white” in Qom, and linked to the nation-state) and by Protestant morality (Catholics “drink, smoke, and are idolatrous”) (Ceriani Cernadas, 2008). In other words, what could be perceived from afar as culturally homogeneous in a community is in itself the product of disputes and negotiations, in the context of both past and present interethnic relations. The neighborhood children participate in activities at the three Evangelio churches. When religious practices are examined as part of the interethnic relationships in children’s day-to-day lives, it is possible to observe the influence of what we could refer to as “native pedagogy.” Children are involved in diverse practices that aim to build them into subjects who act in accordance with what is expected of Toba/Qom adults. One of these expectations is to be familiar with the Evangelio and thus stand out from “the Catholics.” As children in the neighborhood circulate between different spaces, they are expected to actively engage with multiple types of knowledge. At the same time, certain types of social knowledge would seem to represent generational markers. From the native perspective, these are types of knowledge that adults, not children, possess (Hecht, 2010). Speaking la idioma (language), knowing the monte (wilderness), doing craftwork, and subscribing to the Evangelio are part of being a “Qom adult,” but are not “compulsory” or expected of children. There is also no notion

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of obliging children or “instilling” certain habits in them. Thus, the conception of agency in learning is tied to the fact that childhood activities are “non-compulsory.” This is a crucial point when examining the overlap between religious and ethnic identities since subscribing to the Evangelio—and the search for personal conviction prior to “surrendering”—are perceived as noncompulsory. This status becomes significant in comparison to the activities imposed by the Catholic Church, which are perceived as “compulsory.” Such perception draws from historical as well as contemporary ties between these groups, since the majority of the children and youth with whom I interacted have attended a Catholic school next to the neighborhood. The relationship between the community and this school is fraught with complexity. The children participate in catechism classes—a passing grade is mandatory—and a series of church rites are part of the education offered. Given all these formative religious experiences involving the neighborhood’s children, in previous work (García Palacios, 2014) I have analyzed how children and youth gradually construct meaning through the religious practices they engage in, making their experiences meaningful. This work draws on an interdisciplinary dialogue between social anthropology and genetic psychology (García Palacios & Castorina, 2014; García Palacios et al., 2018). Most studies in genetic psychology hardly clarify sociocultural contexts and though the psychological analysis of cognitive processes sometimes mentions context (Lave, 2001), research is focused on the internal and the individual. In anthropology, there is a long tradition of examining sociocultural contexts developing a specific methodology— ethnography—for their analysis. Yet, the explanation of cognitive processes based on context, also drawing on anthropology, hardly considers individual knowledge production and the myriad factors such processes involve. Valsiner (1998) argued that researchers should treat the intramental and intermental as “inclusively separated,” that is, part of a whole but each considered on its own; the relationship between the two should be one of the research aims. Therefore, we have strived to balance the study of individual cognitive processes with the social milieu in which these occur, building a dialectical framework of context and knowledge construction (García Palacios et al., 2018). According to Toren (1993), everything we do as human beings is to some extent mediated by our relationships with others. This is why it is important to understand children’s constructions within the social relations ongoing in everyday interactions. I will explore the interethnic relations of Toba/Qom groups to understand the complex connections between individual constructions of meaning and socioculturally established meanings. The focus is on actual experience, revealing both the social and cultural reconfiguration of relationships and the cognitive constructions

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of individual subjects. Although the conditions of a given social and cultural configuration enable certain experiences in which knowledge is constructed, by no means they determine these experiences. My research explores how, as socially configured meanings become available and are then learned by subjects, they are also transformed and reconstructed in the process. In a similar vein, Rogoff (1997) and Lave (2001; Lave & Wenger, 1991) developed the theory of situated activity. “Contexts are activity systems. An activity system integrates the subject, the objects and the instruments (material tools as well as signs and symbols) into a unified whole ... that includes production and communication, distribution, exchange and consumption” (Lave, 2001, p. 30). The interdependence of learning components means that, for Rogoff (1997), individual thought cannot be detached from actions, circumstances, and goals. The basic premise behind appropriation is that participation in activities changes people, preparing themselves for other similar activities. A person’s participation is therefore both a social and individual process. The unit of analysis in a social context becomes guided participation, or culturally organized activities in which the participants with less experience are encouraged by more seasoned members. In the field of anthropology and education, Rockwell (1995, 1996) also proposed appropriation as a counterweight to the concept of socialization. She noted how the concept of appropriation allows researchers to reveal reciprocal actions between individual or collective subjects and diverse institutions or social groups, whereas socialization assumes that society has a homogeneous effect on the individual. Instead of considering solely the actions of institutions (family, school, state, etc.), an analysis of appropriation contemplates the subject’s own activities (albeit involuntary), challenging vertical transmission. As appropriation is conceived as a process that continues over the course of human life, the hefty weight often attributed to “primary socialization” in identity formation is reduced. In my research, this concept of appropriation can be related to the identifications that neighborhood residents build over their life course in an open-ended process. In the following, I will first reconstruct the diverse religious trajectories of neighborhood children and youth, based on continuous ethnographic fieldwork with the same subjects. By studying “beliefs” in concrete practices and in broader social relations, it becomes clear that religion is a field in which children from the Toba neighborhood construct their membership within an ethnic group (“we”) distinguishable from the others (“them”). In this sense, connections between religion and ethnicity prove crucial: when living their lives in diverse social contexts, children often come upon established borders and communities supported by social discourses that are rooted in power relations (Hall, 2002). In this regard,

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I will attempt to engage with some of the questions inspiring this volume, exploring the processes that appear when meaning making is examined from the perspective of social space and through time. The question of the tensions and transformations that can be found as subjects move within, through and between communities will also be addressed, along with the processes associated with belonging to different communities in an intercultural setting, and how this affects the meaning making of the young Toba/Qom subjects. To analyze how children interpret diverse situations in relation to different communities, the distinction between mastery and appropriation by James Wertsch (1998) proves useful. While “mastery” refers to knowing how to use something, “appropriation” is making that something one’s own; in the case of the Toba/Qom, the appropriation of diverse cultural meanings is not necessarily related to their mastery, or at least, no simple connection is apparent. In the study of appropriation processes, and in keeping with Wertsch, it is possible to detect certain instances in my fieldwork where subjects display a high degree of mastery but a low level of appropriation. People have different ways to dealing with these situations and the second section of this chapter will focus on the diverse strategies among Toba/Qom neighborhood children to connect with what are often viewed as opposing cultural contents. Finally, I present my conclusions and relate them to the questions about communities that this volume raises. “I SURRENDERED TO THE EVANGELIO”: CONVERSION STORIES AND RELIGIOUS TRAJECTORIES IN INTERCULTURAL CONTEXTS Initiation in the Evangelio follows a pattern, regardless of the church where a subject decides to convert. According to Wright (2008), the initiation generally coincides with an existential crisis involving illness, alcoholism, adultery and/or unemployment (...) the person suffering “feels the Evangelio entering,” and after an initial stage of therapy provided by the church, is cured of his or her ailment and then asks the pastor to be baptized. (p. 198)

Stories of conversion testify to how individuals get involved in this religious movement. If the idea of a “hegemonic conversion discourse” is accepted, the differences that mark the individual narratives of believers pale in the face of an “archetypal tale” of what conversion is expected to be. Because “although every conversion discourse implies a separation between the before and after and a selective re-elaboration of the past from

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the perspective of the new religious affiliation, what is unique about the Toba—and many other indigenous groups—is that this reinterpretation is not restricted to the personal sphere but extends to sociocultural history, and therefore involves redefining one’s identity as Toba” (Ceriani Cernadas & Citro, 2005, p. 139). Below is the testimony of an elderly man during a culto (literally translated, “worship,” it is used to refer to services in the Evangelio) and that of a younger man who “surrendered” just a short time before he was interviewed: [Culto at Iglesia Unida, evening] Oscar: So tonight, my brothers, blessed be the Lord, we also have our second pastor, an elderly member of the church, who wants to give his thanks. Benjamin: We give our thanks to the Lord who has allowed us to be here in his presence. I am constantly thanking Him. We used to only think about things from our own [Toba] perspective but once we’ve come into the Evangelio, you change the way you think about things, isn’t that right? Audience: Amen. Benjamin: We used to say, of course, there are many gods, but now we realize that there is only one. Audience: Amen. Benjamin: There is only one and the whole world... Audience: Amen. Benjamin: The whole world ... was looking for God... I was really close-minded. And that’s when I met Gabriel and they taught me a lot; I also met the pastor, Danilo, who is here as well and he’s teaching me too, you know.... He’s teaching me little by little. I abandoned the person I used to be. And I used to be even worse: I would go out and do bad things, all that stuff, alcohol, drugs. I left all that behind, I mean, and ... I stayed here. And so ... I left that behind and came here and now I have met so many friends, so many.... In the capital, in the neighborhood. I have met so many friends who are also Christian and they share my faith. It was wonderful to meet all of these friends who are Christian because.... How can I put this ... it’s like we were really closed off ... I used to be really closed off and I didn’t talk much. And.... Now I’m a little more ... open and I can talk calmly and all that. Everything has changed. It’s like I’m a different person. (Luciano, 17)

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These testimonies show precisely what initiates were expecting from their conversion. In a study of Pentecostal conversions, Guerrero (2005) challenges social scientists who structure the story in a way similar to that of the converted subject, placing both in an “after” scenario: “Both [scholar and convert] process their story from a position that adopts the following narrative formula: ‘My life used to be like that but now it’s different’ ” (p. 375). Therefore, I believe it is necessary to understand how people build different meanings about religion over the course of their lives. From this perspective, “surrendering” to the Evangelio is a process and not simply an after-the-fact reconstruction by those who have been initiated. Since the past is reinterpreted after conversion, it would theoretically be possible to trace the adult believer’s reconstruction of his/her childhood and church experiences back in time. However, we would be neglecting the social dynamics of children’s formative experiences, which may or may not contribute to “surrendering.” We can find this type of problem in studies that deal exclusively with adult narratives of childhood, not with children, as our adult memories are also affected by how we have learned to think about childhood as adults (Ridgely Bales, 2005). Indeed, childhood participation in churches has acquired new meaning in adulthood. Most people who surrender to the Evangelio and appropriate the discourse of the convert stress a certain immediacy (“I was in the world before, now I’m in the Evangelio”). The current conversion stories can be seen as updating the story of conversion, to some extent, as one of an “irreligious aboriginal group” and its “surrender to the Evangelio.” The story of one’s conversion is never strictly factual. However, for the first generation of people in touch with the Evangelio—or before it had gained a foothold in all of the Toba/Qom neighborhoods—the structure of these stories (the “I wasn’t here then; now I am,”) strongly correlates with the sociocultural history of the group. What happens, however, with the neighborhood children who go to church since they were born? How do those who finally “surrender” to the Evangelio formulate the story of a life change? Do their intercultural life experiences affect their appropriation of religious knowledge? By studying religious trajectories over time, I believe it is possible to respond to these questions. When the Mundane Beckons and Young People Follow During more than a decade of fieldwork, I have followed the trajectories of many children. Noelia’s trajectory is similar to that of many Qom. At the age of nine, during a workshop in which young participants were asked to draw the places they visited every day, she made the drawing shown in Figure 13.1.

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Figure 13.1.  Noelia’s drawing (9 years old).

When asked to explain the drawing, she said, “During the day I play with the girl next door and we climb trees. At night, I go to the culto.” In a personal interview that same year, she told us, “I sing at church when I go with my mom ... I also know songs from the church that are songs from here, songs they taught me” (Noelia, 9). During another workshop two years later, Noelia, then age 11, made the drawing shown in Figure 13.2. At the top, she wrote, This is my grandma’s church [“grandma” and “grandpa” refer to all the elders]. I go there Sunday mornings. I listen to the pastor and I sing and dance with the other girls. I wear a long skirt. People from the neighborhood come to the church and others come too. (Noelia, 11)

It is clear that “going to church” is part of Noelia’s formative, day-today experiences. In an anthropological analysis of children’s religious experiences that incorporates some of Piaget’s theories, Toren (2003) observes that the process of making these experiences meaningful involves a “fixation of the belief,” that is, the process whereby a person becomes a “believer.” In keeping with this idea, in a previous study on how religious belief is constructed (García Palacios, 2014), I analyzed the meanings that children and adults from the neighborhood associated with churchgoing.

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Figure 13.2.  Noelia’s drawing (11 years old).

It became clear that although going to church is part of everyday life for all neighborhood residents, they attribute different meanings to it. For children ages eight and under, going to church is associated only with singing and dancing. Although these activities are mentioned by the next cohort of children (ages nine and up), the older children also begin to mention the Bible, Jesus, God, “the word,” and prayer when asked about churchgoing. While these ostensibly more “religious” aspects are not mentioned by the younger children, it is important to note how in ethnographic terms, they nonetheless begin to forge daily ties with these objects from very early on. That the children under age nine did not mention prayer or the Bible when talking about what they did at church does not necessarily mean they are not aware of them, only that they may not associate them with churchgoing. Given that a subject’s construction of the proposed social objects is based on their experiences interacting with them (Castorina, 2005), it is not surprising that younger children do not initially associate “prayer,” “the word” or other objects they are not engaged with as things “from church,”—or at least, not as exclusive to it. According to their own experiences, these things would correspond to other places in their daily lives.

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The association of the church and its activities (“singing and dancing”) with “religious objects” (the Bible, Jesus, God, prayer) seems to be a gradual, long-term process. In their reconstruction, children come to attribute new meanings to church activities which adult believers would take as a given from the very start. In short, as Toren (1993) sustains, meanings are never “received.” They are always the product of a construction process that is mediated, but not determined, by the relations of each person with others. Even when the material conditions structure the array of possible experiences, there is an active process of appropriation and reconstruction. To cite Noelia once again, participating in an interview at age 13: Mariana: Are you attending the churches now? Noelia: No, not now. Mariana: You don’t? Noelia: No. I haven’t been attending but ... I don’t know ... I used to go with the girls but now none of them go.... So I don’t know who I’d go with. So I don’t go too often.… They spend all their time at school, coming and going, and they don’t go.... And Saturdays and Sundays, they aren’t there. (Noelia, 13)

Noelia’s trajectory is particularly indicative of what happens to most youth when they begin to distance themselves from the church: “They [the older ones] don’t go [to church] because you know, now they’re more into music. You get more into music and you don’t go to church anymore.” “They listen to more reggaeton.” “So it goes like this.... You know, when a girl starts dressing up to get the boys’ attention...?” At this stage, it also appears that young people are susceptible to teasing by their peers. In my view, if I say it [the culto] is nice.... If I surrender ... I want to surrender but then everyone starts teasing you, like [some neighborhood boys].… So that’s why I haven’t ... I want to but.... Because they start to tease you.... My Mom also wants me to.... But even my brother teases me. (Martín, 14)

Laura: Sometimes we want to go but.... Then you just can’t. Mariana: You can’t? Laura: No.... On top of it, they’ll tease you! Mariana: Will they?

“Apart From Being Taught, You Teach Yourself”   259 Laura: You can’t go. Carme, isn’t that right, that you get teased for going to church? [Carme nods]. Yup, they have no respect for anything. Mariana: Who teases you? Laura: The boys. (Laura, 14)

When they talk about “going to church”, young people distinguish between being “churchgoers” on the one hand, and “believing” or “being Evangelio” on the other, pointing out that they aren’t churchgoers, but they do believe. It is interesting that, just as we saw how “going to church” is associated with dancing and singing among the youngest children, the idea that the adult believer has of “going to church” presupposes identification and belief. If people attend church it is because they are Evangelio. But at the same time, “being a believer” is something that exceeds “going to church”: “I believe in the Evangelio, but I don’t go to church” (Pedro, 67); “I am a member of Iglesia Unida but nowadays, I only go when I’m up to it” (Eduardo, 52). Once religious belief has been constructed through church attendance, it is no longer “necessary” to go to church to sustain that belief. In the case of youth, as they distance themselves from the church it is not the “beliefs” (in the Evangelio) that are questioned but the church and pastors who “act all bossy.” Laura, who so far had a religious trajectory very similar to that of Noelia, who I quoted above, said the following about when she decided to abandon the church: We were in the cafeteria [the community space where the culto gathered] and they started preaching about the clothes we were wearing, saying we weren’t dressed properly. Because ... I don’t know, we never really got why. And the guy kept preaching about our clothes and most of us just went in sportswear, or whatever. And he said the woman had to dress like a woman before God and the man had to dress like a man before God. On top of that, it was like we had to have something different from those who didn’t belong, had to show we were Christian in other ways, not just in how we behaved, you know? And we didn’t want that: we wanted to go wearing the clothes we like to wear, you see? Or maybe it wasn’t the right time and that’s why we left. (Laura, 21)

This distancing, a tendency of youth to question the churches, shows that there is no linear process of “religious socialization.” In 2019, I interviewed Noelia and Laura again, now aged 20 and 21 respectively. When I asked about their involvement in the churches, I found out that Noelia “hadn’t returned,” but Laura had begun participating after attending a culto with a family member:

260  M. GARCÍA PALACIOS First I sat there thinking, “Gosh, I just want to go home.” And then I saw the little girls all dressed up and dancing. I was sitting there and at the beginning, I didn’t want to watch them, because I knew I would cry, because it was emotional, because I used to be one of those girls. So there I was and I wanted to stand up but I couldn’t. And I wanted to leave but I couldn’t. And I said, “Oh, no, this was a mistake, why did I agree to come?” [laughing].… And I saw the girls there and a tear rolled down my cheek and I remembered when we used to dance like that. Because I knew Him, I knew God, and I asked myself, “Why did I do that? Why did I leave?” And there I was, crying, and listening to the pastor. He was preaching and it’s like everything he says is for you, what he’s saying, you know? And there I was.... And then it came to me, like I was sorry and well, I went up front. And well, after that, I reconciled ... I felt sorry for having strayed from the path ... sorry for having done wrong (...) for having tried things that were bad but doing it just the same. (Laura, 21)

Some of the young people who were “distanced” but now they “returned to church” leverage this period of “being in the world” in their own stories of conversion. Below I present two different trajectories that I was also able to reconstruct. “I’m An Evangelio From the Cradle” Alba, who is now 22, defines herself as an “Evangelio from the cradle,” because she began attending the Pentecostal Church of Jesus Christ as a baby. She is the granddaughter of the pastors of the church just like her sister, who is not as interested. In Alba’s words, It [whether or not I go to church] depends on what I’m thinking. Because some of the... There were moments when I didn’t.... When I didn’t care about too many things. That was when ... I was 13. But after that, I realized that if I don’t care about the Lord’s things, without the Lord, I’m nobody. And those moments were.... Really ugly, yes. And.... Then I came back to the Lord again. And I’ve stuck with him. I went back later when I realized that mundane things aren’t too good.... For a person’s life. Those things.... Mundane things, they’re no good. They don’t lead you down the right path. (Alba, 15)

As this fragment shows, Alba was also distanced some time. Although it was not for long, symbolically it operates as “distancing” all the same. On the other hand, Alba attended the Catholic elementary and middle school until she was about 13. She stopped going after a four-month trip to Chaco because she would have had to repeat. Regarding religious teaching at school, she says:

“Apart From Being Taught, You Teach Yourself”   261 I didn’t want to incorporate what they told me because I know it’s wrong. Catholics are different from Christians. Catholics drink alcohol and all, but that’s now the way it is. They worship people who don’t have anything to do with this. That’s the biggest difference. Because when I went there, they used to have “Catholic studies.” They would separate me from the group; send me to the back of the room. And I would sit back there, but listen to what they were saying. And part of me felt like.... Like they were discriminating a little. At the end of the day, we’re all brothers and sisters in Christ, right? They would send all of us girls from the neighborhood to sit in the back. (Alba, 15)

Alba’s story reveals one of various mechanisms of exclusion that can be seen at the school, where children are identified as “non-Catholic.” According to vice-principal director Ernesto, “Tobas have another religion, another way of thinking,” and “the only non-Catholic children we accept are the Tobas.” Children at the school are expected to receive their first communion in fifth grade, but that “is not mandatory” for the neighborhood kids. According to catechism teacher Marcos, “that also has something to do with the idea of charity at the school and the church, you know? The idea of not excluding. Not excluding, that is what they do with them, they’ve got that.... How do you say it?... That privilege, as it were, for them, but nobody else.” In any case, the school emphasizes that non-Catholic students “sit in” on the religious activities. It is interesting to see how these mechanisms are interpreted differently by different people, though all of the interpretations clearly point to the same process of exclusion and emphasizing difference. Sofia, for example, was one of the “neighborhood girls,” a classmate of Alba’s. She and her brother Javier tell about receiving their first communion with the other students below. “I Made Quite a Mess of Things”: Receiving the First Communion in the Catholic Church Sofia and Javier are siblings who received the first communion at the Catholic Church they had attended since elementary school. Javier reflects on the event: It felt good because all of my classmates were there.... All the kids I went to school with. And both classes ... I think it was in fifth grade.... Both fifth grade classes did it together. And it felt good because it was.... Because we practiced there at school with our catechism teacher. He taught us the songs we had to sing.... And.... It felt good ... I wanted to do it, I don’t know. (Javier, 13)

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I believe that Javier’s apparent emphasis on the presence of his classmates, on the fact that “all of them were there,” should be understood within the framework of building the “community” at school. The exclusion that the neighborhood children often experienced there is another key element, already noted in the fragments above. The school staff ’s assessment of the neighborhood families also depends on whether or not they participate in the religious activities. The catechism teacher Marcos said about Javier, Sofia, and their family: Their mom is a very pleasant woman with good manners and this is important because many of them [the Toba/Qom] are guarded and they exclude themselves, and then the kids do the same, you see? And their relationship [of Sofia and Javier] with the kids [from different neighborhoods]—which is really important—seems good. There is nothing at all that is different about these kids, Sofia and Javier: they are engaged with school and have made friends, very much integrated. For other [Toba/Qom] kids, integration is very hard. And Sofia and Javier are really involved, both of them.

The mother of the children told us that when her 10-year-old daughter wanted to receive her first communion with her classmates at Catholic school, she had no objections. However, she also mentioned her own decision not to participate in a meditation group that visited the neighborhood, saying that because she is Evangelio she preferred not to “mix. While it is common for people subscribing to a certain religion to not allow their children to engage in other religious practices (Pires, 2011), the fact that the Toba/Qom children move between different spaces and interact with different religious elements does not appear to worry the neighborhood adults. This is indicative of how the Toba/Qom leave certain decisions to their children. As adults, once they have surrendered to the Evangelio, it is assumed that they will no longer frequent other churches, because now churchgoing involves belief. A comment by one of the neighborhood elders reflects this idea. When asked about his granddaughter Barbara taking the religion class at Catholic school, he said: “They have to learn everything they can learn…. Afterwards, when they grow up, they’ll see where they stand” (Benjamín, 78). In any case, the question of where children will ultimately “stand” does matter to the adults, so Sofia tells us: I was going to one church [the Pentecostal] and then I switched to another [Iglesia Unida] and then I received communion [in the Catholic Church] and then I went back to the other one [Iglesia Unida] and well, that was when.... Because my aunts kept on asking me, “Why did you do it? [communion] Why that?” They were always the ones to ask. And, well, it was my decision. They would always find something to criticize. So I just stopped altogether because they were always nagging me about something. So that’s

“Apart From Being Taught, You Teach Yourself”   263 why I stopped going [to Iglesia Unida]. So.... three churches [laughs] What a mess! I made quite a mess of things. Mariana: Your family or just you? No, just me. (Sofia, 14)

Based on all these testimonies, it can be argued that religion does not appear in people’s lives as a sudden, individual revelation, but it cannot be reduced to a mere “cultural imposition” either. Therefore, including children’s experiences in social research can reveal aspects of a social phenomenon that would go otherwise unnoticed. In my research, I believe it is critical to acknowledge the complex relationship between agency and social conditioning. Although the subjects who tell their story express a sense of suddenness, appropriating the story of conversion that emphasizes “before” and “after,” the reconstruction of children’s experiences and trajectories indicates that there is no such suddenness. Research must therefore go beyond merely transcribing one specific perspective and accepting the suddenness of the change in beliefs and identifications that people voice in order to analyze the process which allowed them to build them (or prevented them from doing so). Participation in a range of ritualized daily practices contributes to the very process of constructing belief. However, this does not mean that participation alone turns people into believers or obliges them to identify with the Evangelio. In fact, children from the neighborhood also participate in religious practices at the Catholic school they attend. Therefore, the process of constructing belief is not simply about “being there.” Rather, this participation is mediated by the relationship with others, by different mandates and expectations so as to feel identified with certain communities, but not others. For this reason, an inquiry into the established categories and denominations (in our case, “Toba,” “Catholics,” “Evangelio”) that influence the construction of people’s own identifications proves essential. This will be addressed below. BETWEEN CATHOLIC SCHOOL AND EVANGELIO CHURCHES: NOTES ON APPROPRIATION Considering that a subject appropriates within situations where objects play only certain roles, it is critical to analyze how these objects are presented to children and what the children are expected to do with them. Therefore, in the process of constructing belief a series of imperatives and overtures mediate the participation of children in an attempt to foster identification with certain groups. This is what differentiates the neighborhood’s religious practices, in which the children are expected to be part of a group (“we are Tobas/Qom so we are Evangelio”), from the practices carried out at school

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that consider them as “the other” (“Tobas aren’t Catholic”). Of course, the agency of the child also plays a role, as evidenced in the trajectories reconstructed in the previous section. At the risk of being repetitive, I would like to emphasize that Alba and Sofia have been classmates since elementary school but only Sofia received communion. This could be attributed to the “influence” of Alba’s family: her grandfathers were both pastors, so she declares she is “Evangelio from the cradle.” Her sister, however, does not find the church compelling in the same way. Sofia’s uncles and neighbors are also pastors and her sister Malena, when she was 8 years old, said in an interview that she did not want to receive communion the way her sister and brother did. At the age of 15, Malena confirmed that she continued to attend school but never took communion. As Alba sustained at 15, it could be argued that in the neighborhood “no one can say they had nothing to do with the church because everyone did.” Yet, it is also clear that having something to do with the church was not necessarily the same for each person or in every context. In this regard, I think the distinction that Wertsch (1998) makes between mastery and appropriation is useful. The two processes are analytically distinct, and, on some occasions, they can be differentiated empirically. In fact, people can develop a feeling of conflict or resistance with a cultural tool and if this feeling grows, they may even choose to reject it: In such instances, we might say that agents do not view that cultural tool as belonging to them. If agents are still required to use this mediational means, their performance is often characterized by clear forms of resistance such as dissimulation. (p. 97)

On this topic, the following fragment from an interview with Laura, attending Catholic school since elementary levels, is insightful: Laura: In our Religion class, we have a catechism teacher who is also a nun and she’s taught us a lot.... They ask me questions, they ask a lot of questions, like who the Mother [the founder of the congregation] is or what year she was born. They teach you and you have to know it if they ask you about it the next day. Mariana: So they test you? So to speak. Laura: That’s right. They test you on everything. You know? Mariana: Can you fail catechism? ... Could you get, say, an F? Laura: Oh, sure, you can fail.... Yes, it’s a class with a grade ...

“Apart From Being Taught, You Teach Yourself”   265 Laura: [I told the professor] I know [who the Mother founder is] and all that other stuff you believe, but.... But the teacher said that all religions are the same because we believe in the same person. Then one day out of nowhere, the teacher asks you, who was the Mother [the founder] and when was she born? You don’t know the answer and the teacher notes that down in the grade book.... She was a chubby lady that has.... Mother [the founder] was chubby [laughs]. But they believe in her because she used to help back in the day.… And we saw a movie about her. And there are books that tell you about her life. Everything she did and why they believe in her, you know? She was like a servant. She would go to places where things needed to be done and she would help.... And then there are a ton of pictures where you see her writing and praying. She had three children [their names]. The husband’s name was.… [She shows me what is inside her folder] Mariana: And is this like what you learned in the church here? [The church she used to go to, as described in her trajectory] Laura: No, not at all, totally different. I mean, it was confusing. Mariana: What was confusing? Both at once? Laura: Uh-huh, two religions, going to one school and believing something else. Mariana: So how did you handle that? Laura: Um, I don’t know. When the teacher explained something about a saint, I wouldn’t listen. Or I’d get up and the teacher would send me out of the classroom. I wouldn’t listen. And if you talk, they make you leave the classroom. You know? Mariana: So you didn’t want to listen. Laura: Uh-huh, that’s right. Or sometimes I would say, “Can we talk about something else?” and she would say, “What do you want to talk about?” And I would change the subject to keep the teacher from talking about that.... There’s ... an issue with the saints. Because in the Evangelio, you’re supposed to believe in God and no one else, they say, “Thou shalt not worship.... Other gods.” But at the school, it was different. I mean, you could believe in many things there, no one would stop you. (Laura, 14)

The fragments reveal that the issue exceeds mastery, since Laura “knows” very well what she has to learn. In keeping with Wertsch (1998), the problem with mastering something is whether it “is something with which the agent identifies and is willing to borrow” (p. 99), that is, to make it one’s own. The appropriation of diverse cultural meanings is not necessarily related to their mastery, or at least the relationship between them is far from simple. On certain occasions, there can be a high degree of mastery but a low level

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of appropriation. People have different ways of dealing with these situations. Laura’s interview shows that the neighborhood children employ a range of strategies. This is also seen in this fragment: And I thought about it like this, “Well, that’s the religion they believe in. I’m going to this school so I can respect that.” If I have my religion, they are going to have to respect that, but I’m studying here so no one should disrespect me and I won’t disrespect anyone. Nope, not me.... Maybe I’d make some jokes with my classmates but never in front of them. I was always respectful, you see, if they believe in something.... They do something that they believe is right.... And that’s fine.... As long as they have a Bible in their hand. That’s the only thing that.... You can read a Bible and think differently. But if it’s written in the Bible, there it is. I can’t change it or anything. And so I thought, as long as they have the Bible ... I only believed them when they would mention Jesus or God, but when they talked about the virgins or the saints, I just.... It would go in here [points to her ear] and out the other. Because I didn’t…. Because it’s just not true and I don’t see that in the Bible. I never read in there about what any of the saints did. (Renata, 17)

When analyzing how people connect to religion, it is important to remember that children do not associate with the Evangelio in a “social void.” Rather, their association is mediated by their relationships with others. Asad (1993) stresses that it is inconceivable that a “disembodied mind” could identify with religion from a discovery point of view. According to the author, this “mind” does not spontaneously move toward true religion. Instead, power relations create the conditions for people to experience that truth: “is fundamentally a matter of intervention—of constructing religion in the world (not in the mind) through definitional discourses, interpreting true meanings, excluding some utterances and practices and including others” (p. 44). There are conditions that help explain how symbols are built and how some of them are established as natural or as more important than others. In this sense, I can highlight the role played by the preexisting network of social meanings on social objects that are “worthy” or “unworthy” of being known (Piaget & García, 1982). Among them, citing the meanings that were socially built around the Catholic figures is necessary. Examples from an interview with Sofia and Javier clearly illustrate this point. Mariana: And what were you saying about believing in the Virgin...? Sofia: Her too. Mary. And well, that’s where my Mom says that’s a whole other religion. Yeah ... I don’t believe, because they say it’s like believing in a statue. And not in.... Yeah, a statue. And that would be awful because they’re

“Apart From Being Taught, You Teach Yourself”   267 believing in a statue. I mean, I don’t know, you know Our Lady of Lujan, and all that? Well, we don’t believe in those things, only in God. Mariana: When you say “we,” who do you mean? Sofia: I mean us, my family. Mariana: Oh, your family. Sofia: Yes. Mariana: And so taking communion doesn’t mean that you believe in the Virgin...? Sofia: Uh-huh ... in the Virgin. (Sofia, 14) Mariana: Do you think that what they teach you in catechism is similar to what they teach here in the neighborhood? Or is it different? What do you think? Javier: I think it’s different because.... They have other saints there.... Like Saint Francis and all those guys. Yeah, sometimes I don’t feel comfortable.... Because they give you a little card [a prayer card] and you have to pray and I don’t like that because it’s like you’re worshiping that saint (...) Mariana: And when you took communion, didn’t you feel like you were one of “them”? Because you say “They have”... Javier: At the same time, I do. Mariana: At the same time, you do? Javier: There were times when I wanted to do it here [in the neighborhood].… But I didn’t dare.… And I haven’t gone back since. Because I was already baptized there [in the Catholic Church] and not another baptism, no…. Because I don’t…. Doing it twice didn’t feel right. Because it’s like I received the Baptism once and then it would be receiving it again. And.... That’s as far as I got. (Javier, 13)

On the one hand, the fragments alert us that as they live their lives, children come upon established borders with communities backed by the social discourses rooted in power relations. Oftentimes these discourses, like Hall (2002) argues, give an impression that it is possible to cross—but never erase—the borders dividing these worlds. Sofia and Javier were baptized and received the first communion, which would theoretically include them in the Catholic community. However, the border between Doqshe (white) and Qom remains. On the other hand, the excerpts are also clear examples

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of how Javier and Sofia’s appropriation of Catholicism take into account their prior appropriation of some other beliefs—for example, those coming from the Evangelio. This reveals that the appropriation process is always active and that it can even involve taking a stance with regards to new problems. CONCLUSIONS After observing how neighborhood residents formulated their stories of conversion, I realized that the “surrender” to the Evangelio needed to be studied as a process and not merely analyzed from the perspective of people’s reconstruction of their initiation after the fact. This approach allowed me to show the breadth of trajectories among children, strengthening the claim that the ways of appropriation and the reconstruction of religious experiences from different contexts, even those which are contradictory, are widely diverse. I agree with Hall (2002) that people often express their “cultural dilemmas” in dichotomous terms, though in practice they may engage a broad range of cultural influences, as evidenced in the trajectories of the Toba/Qom children and youth. Research on religious conversions tends to emphasize the difference between a “before” and “after,” but overlooks the process leading from one moment to the next. In contrast, studies of socialization within the social sciences have tried to capture transformations over time, but often treat children as a relatively homogenous group that passively receives cultural guidelines. In this approach, the “transmitted content” is treated as ahistorical, finished, fixed, and external. From this perspective, children are unsuitable subjects, because they represent only the beginning of a process whose outcome the researcher assumes as a given. In keeping with Rogoff (1997), studies that draw on the psychological construct of internalization present a similar issue as they treat the individual as a passive recipient of external social or cultural influences or as an active seeker of external, passive skills and knowledge. Instead, it is fundamental to understand the mutual and dynamic formation of people and their sociocultural contexts: “the social and cultural environment creates the guiding conditions for people’s lives, by constraining and mediating life trajectories, but also by offering people cultural elements that can be used as resources” (Zittoun et al., 2018, p. 430). The complexity of the network of relationships of the neighborhood children, and of the interactions between the Catholic religion and the Evangelio, provides an ideal opportunity for analyzing the connections

“Apart From Being Taught, You Teach Yourself”   269

between religious identifications and ethnicity. It is also a chance to evaluate how, based on each context and their assessments of their own experiences, diverse “feelings of community belonging” are articulated. In the local religious field, the contact between the neighborhood, its churches and the Catholic school appears to be suitable for analyzing these tensions. Thus, one can be aware of the links between practices involving particular collective meanings (such as religious practices among the Toba people), and situations where the continuity of the community is locally perceived to be jeopardized. My research revealed how interpellation conditions the way in which boys and girls appropriate beliefs. This would allow religious practices in the neighborhood that interpellated youths as part of a group (as “Tobas,” and, therefore, as “Evangelio,”) to be distinguished from practices in which they are interpellated as “the other” (as “Tobas,” and, therefore, as “non-Catholics”). Therefore, religious constructions entail a process in which social conditioning is as clearly at work as people’s agency. Undoubtedly, the process of reconstructing the meanings that children attribute to their experiences added a layer of complexity to the suddenness in the stories of conversion told by most of the people who “surrendered to the Evangelio.” Indeed, adults rework the meaning of their church participation as children, which is why I argued that incorporating the experiences of boys and girls in social research can provide insights into a social phenomenon that would otherwise go undetected. At the same time, this ethnography has evidenced that children do not merely reproduce the meanings attributed by adults: they build their own meanings, which cannot be understood outside their formative experiences and, more broadly, the social relations of their world. In the words of Renata, who is quoted in the title of this chapter, “We also live our lives. We respect our parents and the way they live and all that, but we are who we are. You grow and you learn more and more each day. You grow up and it is like you teach yourself. Apart from being taught, you teach yourself how to manage things, how to live, how to think” (Renata, 17). FUNDING AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This research is supported by the National Council for Technical and Scientific Research (CONICET, Argentina) and University of Buenos Aires (UBA, Argentina). The researcher had a fellowship from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD, Germany), in 2018, and a fellowship from the UNESCO/Keizo Obuchi Programme, in 2019. Special thanks to the editors, and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful suggestions, and to Wendy Gosselin, the translator, for her meticulous work.

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NOTES 1. The Toba people, whose ethnonym is Qom, are part of the Guaycurú ethnic and linguistic group that also includes Mocovíes, Pilagás, Kadiweos, or Caduveos, and the already extinct Abipones, Mabyas, and Payagüas (Messineo, 2000). One of the many Toba neighborhoods in the province of Buenos Aires, it was formed in 1995 by 32 families originally from Chaco and Formosa (northeast of Argentina). The names that appear here have been changed to preserve anonymity. 2. I prefer to use ethnography because the direct and sustained social interactions with agents reveal the irreducibility of human experience (Hammersley & Atkinson, 1994; Rockwell, 2009). My ethnography examined the relationships within the Buenos Aires neighborhood (in households, community areas, churches, and the local Catholic school), but also in the neighborhoods of Chaco, where Toba people often go visit. To avoid relying on the physical space in sketching the community, it is important to reconstruct the localized space corresponding to the network of social relations community members have created both among themselves and with members of other communities. Instead of focusing on a single, predefined site, this multisite ethnography attempts to track the network of relationships reconstructed in the field. The study involved different techniques, including three workshops with children and young people in 2007, 2009, and 2018. In 2011, I conducted a series of interviews with forty children, incorporating some reviewed key aspects of the clinical-critical method proposed by Piaget (García Palacios & Castorina, 2014). I am currently conducting a new series of interviews. 3. For example, those who are part of the Evangelio do not have a single stance on the movement and its approach to “native Qom traditions.” Some consider that the Evangelio has “civilized” many Qom traditions while others defend these traditions over the ones incorporated by Pentecostalism. 4. Different religious orders of the Catholic Church were mostly responsible for “converting” and “civilizing” the indigenous people. According to Wright (2008), the early contact between the Toba people and Catholic missionaries made Pentecostalism appear liberating, but embracing it entailed stigmatizing some of their ancestral practices. Thus, the selection of diacritic cultural features is always made in the context of multiple relations of power. 5. “Surrendering” indicates entry to the Evangelio movement, usually followed by the baptism ritual. When a person “surrenders,” he or she stops “being in the world” and begins to “be in the Evangelio.”

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“Apart From Being Taught, You Teach Yourself”   271 boundaries: The social organization of culture difference]. Fondo de cultura económica. Briones, C. (1998). La alteridad del “Cuarto mundo”: Una deconstrucción antropológica de la diferencia [The otherness of the “Fourth World”: An anthropological deconstruction of difference]. Ediciones del sol. Castorina, J. A. (2005). La investigación psicológica de los conocimientos sociales. Los desafíos a la tradición constructivista [The psychological investigation of social knowledge. The challenges to the constructivist tradition. J. A. Castorina (Ed.), Construcción conceptual y representaciones sociales. El conocimiento de la sociedad [Conceptual construction and social representations: Knowledge of society] (pp. 19–44). Miño y Dávila. Ceriani Cernadas, C. (2008). Nuestros hermanos lamanitas: Indios y Fronteras de la Imaginación Mormona [Our Lamanite brothers: Indians and Frontiers of the Mormon imagination]. Editorial Biblos. Ceriani Cernadas, C., & Citro, S. (2005). El movimiento del Evangelio entre los Toba del Chaco argentino. Una revisión histórica y etnográfica [The movement of the Evangelio (Gospel) among the Toba of the Argentine Chaco]. B. Guerrero (Ed.), De Indio a Hermano. Pentecostalismo indígena en América Latina [From Indian to Brother: Indigenous Pentecostalism in Latin America]. Ed. Campus. Dietz, G. (2003). Multiculturalismo, interculturalidad y educación: Una aproximación antropológica [Multiculturalism, interculturality and education: An anthropological approac]. Universidad de Granada. García Palacios, M. (2014). Going to the churches of the Evangelio: Children’s Perspectives on Religion in an Indigenous Urban Setting in Buenos Aires. Childhood’s Todays, 8(1), 1–25. García Palacios, M., & Castorina, J. A. (2014). Studying children’s religious knowledge: Contributions of ethnography and the clinical-critical method. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 48(4), 462–478. García Palacios, M., Shabel, P., Horn, A., & Castorina, J. A. (2018). Uses and meanings of “context” in studies on children’s knowledge: A viewpoint from anthropology and constructivist psychology. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 52(2), 191–208. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-018-9414 Guerrero, B. (2005). Presentación [Presentation]. B. Guerrero (Ed.), De Indio a Hermano. Pentecostalismo indígena en América Latina [From Indian to Brother. Indigenous Pentecostalism in Latin America]. Ed. Campus. Hall, K. (2002). Lives in translation: Sikh youth as British citizens. University of Pennsylvania Press. Hammersley, M., & Atkinson, P. (1994). Etnografía [Ethnography: Principles in practice]. Paidós. Hecht, A. C. (2010). Todavía no se hallaron hablar en idioma. Procesos de socialización lingüística de los niños en el barrio toba de Derqui, Argentina [“They have not yet found themselves speaking the language:” Linguistic socialization processes of children in the Toba neighborhood of Derqui, Argentina]. Muenchen. Lave, J. (2001). La práctica del aprendizaje [The practice of learning]. In S. Chaiklin & J. Lave (Eds.), Estudiar las prácticas. Perspectivas sobre la actividad

272  M. GARCÍA PALACIOS y contexto [Understanding practice: Perspectives on activity and context] (pp. 15–45). Amorrortu. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge University Press. Messineo, C. (2000). Toba teachings. Analysis of oral genres for pedagogical purposes. Latin American Indian Literatures Journal, 16(1), 18–46. Piaget, J., & García, R. (1982). Psicogénesis e historia de la ciencia [Psychogenesis and the history of science]. Siglo XXI. Pires, F. (2011). Quem tem medo de mal-assombro? Religiao e Infancia no semi-árido nordestino [Religion and Childhood in the semi-arid Northeast]. UFPB. Ridgely Bales, S. (2005). When I was a child: Children’s interpretations of First Communion. The University of North Carolina Press. Rockwell, E. (1995). De huellas, bardas y veredas: Una historia cotidiana en la escuela [An everyday story at school]. In E. Rockwell (Ed.), La escuela cotidiana [The everyday school] (pp. 130–157). FCE. Rockwell, E. (1996). La dinámica cultural en la escuela [The cultural dynamic in schools]. In A. Álvarez (Ed.), Hacia un currículum cultural. La vigencia de Vygotski en la educación [Towards a cultural curriculum: The relevance of Vygotski in education] (pp. 87–112). Infancia y Aprendizaje. Rockwell, E. (2009). La experiencia etnográfica. Historia y cultura en los procesos educativos [The ethnographic experience: History and culture in educational processes]. Paidós. Rogoff, B. (1997). Los tres planos de la actividad socio cultural: Apropiación participativa, participación guiada y aprendizaje [Observing sociocultural activity on three planes: Participatory appropriation, guided participation, and apprenticeship]. In J. Werstch & E. del Río (Eds.), La mente sociocultural: Aproximaciones teóricas y aplicadas [Sociocultural studies of mind] (pp. 111–128). Fundación Infancia y Aprendizaje. Toren, C. (1993). Making history: The significance of childhood cognition for a comparative anthropology of mind. Man, 28(3), 461–478. https://doi. org/10.2307/2804235 Toren, C. (2003). Becoming a Christian in Fiji: An ethnographic study of ontogeny. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 10, 709–727. Valsiner, J. (1998). The development of the concept of development: Historical and epistemological perspectives. In W. Damon (Series Ed.) & R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 1. Theoretical models of human development (5th ed., pp. 189–232). Wiley. Wertsch, J. (1998). La mente en acción [Mind as action]. Buenos Aires: Aique. Wright, P. (2008). Ser en el Sueño. Crónicas de Historia y Vida Toba [Being in the dream: Chronicles of Toba history and life]. Biblos. Zittoun, T., Levitan, D., & Cangiá, F. (2018). A sociocultural approach to mobile families: A case study. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 24(4), 424–432.

CHAPTER 14

COMMENTARY— CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY, COMMUNITIES, AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF EXCLUDING SPACES The Production of Foreigners Danilo Silva Guimarães

Culture is not a variable independent of the subjects who actively construct it. The subject is an active dimension of concrete embodied persons cultivated in a tradition. Before the subject, a tradition unfolds through the actions of people described in psychological systems. Unfolding a tradition, which uninterruptedly advances in the present, the person produces a recursive connection with the past, its ancestry. Advancing to the future, psychological systems actualize aspirations previously cultivated and impregnated in diverse mediational means (culture as structure) that constitutes a tradition. Actively transposing eventual conflicts that emerge in different levels of psychological experience, the person ensures

Cultural Psychology in Communities: Tensions and Transformations, pp. 273–287 Copyright © 2020 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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the continuity of a tradition with small or meaningful changes. This can be understood in terms of culture as process. This process is complex. Communitarian contexts of human life articulate individual and collective trajectories that mutually affect each other coordinating different layers of psychological experience: subpersonal coordination of culturally guided bodily dimensions of the person, person-environment coordination, interpersonal coordination, institutional meso- and macro regulations. Consequently, human life in a community is dynamic, its temporality is a recursive process in which people is cultivated through culture and unfolds culture. Narratives emerge as a secondary product of such recursive process in the temporality of individual and collective trajectories. The emerging narratives stabilize selected dimensions of the experience as the narrator perceives and imagines it. It complies with functional needs of organizing aspects of the nebulous stream of the experiences and the emerged narrative participates as a relevant entity of the experience in itself. Once uttered, a narrative affects the listeners and becomes part of the unfolding process of a tradition. The confrontation of distinct narratives about the experience is, for instance, a ground for conflicts between versions and interpretations of events within communities and personal psychological systems: that is, intrapersonal interpretations of life events in mutual conflict. Each narrative presents different understandings about the experience. Different aims of persons, in the making of the selective narrated versions on the events, guide human actions and reflections constructing the concrete world we live in. I have been observing conflictive processes of embodied and narrative coordination in my experience as a researcher in the border of academic and indigenous communities in Brazil. Since 2012 I have been developing an academic program that consists in organizing a series of meetings with people from the indigenous communities, in order to identify psychosocial vulnerabilities they face, aiming at constructing possible strategies to overcome persistent threatening impacts of the colonial violence. Since 2012, around 30 undergraduate and graduate students belonging to different academic courses, such as history, social sciences, and predominantly psychology, participated in the construction of collaborative projects with Amerindian community leaders. We regularly met people from seven communities living in the indigenous lands of Jaraguá, Tenonde Porã, the southern coastal zone of São Paulo State and at the University. Diverse projects emerged, some of them concerning the struggle for accessing education, health care assistance, overcoming human rights violations, community-based tourism etc. Furthermore, we had diverse group meetings and individual sessions with them. Beginning its activities as a university

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extension project, in 2015, the Amerindian Support Network changed its status. It became formally recognized as a community service headquartered at the Institute of Psychology of the University of São Paulo. As an academic network observing, reflecting and participating in a complex interethnic scenario, listening to people in the communities, multiple versions of conflictive experiences reached us. Part of this complexity belongs to the realm of the interdisciplinary context of academic studies: psychological, sociological, anthropological, historical, and philosophical versions about the events involving the colonization of the Americas and its contemporary consequences. Each of these disciplines is heterogeneous in itself. They guide our study in the construction of intelligible apprehensions of the experience we promote between the team of Amerindian Support Network and the people from the communities. Adding to the theoretical complexity of the situation, the experience lived with people from the communities put us in touch with the heterogeneity of versions and reflections present in the Amerindian forums of discussion. These forums are based on oral tradition, though nowadays parts of the Amerindian reflections are recorded in audiovisual, literary and academic productions of indigenous peoples. Concerning this complexity, it is important to observe that in Brazil we have 305 indigenous peoples speaking more than 200 languages, comprising one of the highest ethniccultural diversities in the world. Such heterogeneity can create an impression of an overwhelming complexity impossible to approach. However, we have been observing some recurrent topics of dialogue proposed by the indigenous communities to the psychologists. Issues concern human rights, as the right to live in a territory, keeping their tradition symbolically valued, the inclusion of cultural values and conceptions in educational and health care assistance acknowledged and funded by the state society. We participate in the heterogeneity of communities’ resistance of the colonial process, constructing possible collaborations for the elaboration of projects, acknowledging differential trajectories of meaning construction between the academic and indigenous communities. Therefore, one of our main challenges on the path of the Amerindian Support Network has been learning how to give consistency to our actions and reflections, as members of the academic and psychological communities working with heterogeneous indigenous communities and peoples, articulating heterogeneous interdisciplinary academic fields. The option for a strict empirical approach would put us at risk of being carried away in the stream of the indigenous life and events, disconnecting us from the specificity and potentialities of the psychological approach. Some needs for assistance and juridical needs we face in the communities lead us to concerns that are relevant but impossible to approach from a solely

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psychological perspective. Besides, the psychological understandings of life events are constrained by the cultural traditions that guided the invention of psychology as a science and profession (cf. Figueiredo, 1989/2009, 1992/2007, 1996/2013). In the interethnic meeting between psychologists and indigenous peoples, different apprehension of the events become explicit, revealing distinct ontologies (cf. Descola, 2005; Viveiros de Castro, 1998). Indigenous and psychologist ontologies are usually not the same. Psychological knowledge and theories tend to ignore presuppositions of indigenous life. When a psychologist is an indigenous person, the indigenous psychologist lives an intense conflict integrating distinct ontologies in the psychological system. A psychological community works producing epistemological reflections, conceptual and methodological devices to better represent and practically intervene in the world, so psychologists can dispute their positions in relation to other epistemological, cultural, indigenous positions, among others. Nevertheless, if psychologists depart from a concern that respects the diversity of interpretations about human existence and seek for a way to dialogue with the diversity, then they need to prioritize theoretical and methodological reflections addressing the multiplication of the possibilities for understanding and talking about ourselves, a collaboration with human creativity. Each choice in the psychological field has ethical implications and consequences to our way to dwell the world with or without (silencing) the points of view of others. The perspective of Amerindian Support Network has prioritized a process of dialogical multiplication, in which its ethical effectiveness is evaluated according to the tendencies of our work to enlarge the diversity of interpretations about human existence and ways to dialogue preserving diversity. The productivity or unproductiveness (cf. Cruz, 2015) of this work concerns the aims of ethnic self-affirmation as one of the core strategies adopted by the Amerindian Support Network to work on the psychosocial vulnerabilities that the communities face. Ethnic self-affirmation is the struggle of the Amerindian identities, in actual life situations, to overcome social prejudices and distrust, opening perspectives for future generations, to exist and resist as indigenous peoples. The role of psychologists in this kind of interethnic work cannot be reduced to finding bridges between both worlds but depends on their capacity to support a sort of reflexivity that respects the ethnic particularities, balancing reserved and implied presence of the psychologist (cf. Figueiredo, 2007) whenever an interethnic conflictive situation emerges. The topics introduced here resonate with some of the issues presented and discussed in the chapters in this book section.

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ARTICULATIONS From 2011 to 2017 I had the opportunity to advise a research project from a circus artist and psychologist, about aspects of the community life in the universe of three itinerant circuses in São Paulo (Brazil). Bastos (2013, 2017) conducted research through ethnographic and interview approaches. She focused on some particularities in the community’s daily life and its implications to the constitution of the self of the circus person, showing how it largely concerns the issue of itinerancy. The communities Bastos visited varied from a population of 60 to 200 individuals: babies, children, young, and old people guided by a lead family and assembled artists (for more information about this project see Bastos & Guimarães, 2014; Simão, Guimarães et al., 2015). The specificity of the circus way of living points to the emergence of strong community bonds, capable of overcoming daily difficulties, relating to difference and performing complex, dynamic, and highly challenging projects (Bastos, 2017). Itinerancy and the sense of accomplishment resulting from performing the spectacle are extremely significant constraints that guide the whole life of the circus artist, to the point that people put their lives at risk in their relationship with others on a daily basis. (Bastos, 2017, p. 9)

The itinerant circus community is constantly migrating. In this case, the entire community migrates at the same time, allowing the community to keep internal regularities and the accomplishment of impeccable spectacles. We noticed that their way of living has an impact on the construction of relationships of trust and on the experience of temporality. The regularity of the community’s life promotes an increasing trust among its members, needed to ensure successful presentations and risky scenes, demanding regular rehearsals and commitment of all community members. Some of the members of the circus community were directly responsible to mediate the border between the circus and the surrounding society, negotiating and selling the spectacles in different municipalities, creating the conditions for moving and for the maintenance of the community in the large territory they run through. Other members of the community are more directly responsible for the organization of the spectacle and its parts, regulating what becomes explicit to the perception of the public and the implicit infrastructural conditions for the making of the scenes. The complexity of such social organization creates a migratory process in which few changes are noticed from the perspective of who belongs to the community (internal perspective), despite the surrounding context is dynamic and changeable (external perspective).

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Bringing this illustration from the research on itinerant circuses, I emphasize the distinctions between (1) the relations of the person with the community; (2) the relations of the person with the society surrounding the community; (3) the relation of the community with the surrounding society. The itinerancy of the circus communities is distinct from the nomadic life of the Amerindian peoples of South America lowlands. While the itinerancy of the circus emerged in the context of state-societies; the nomadic life of the Amerindian communities is external to the state-societies and is kept as a resistance to the invasion of the state-societies to their territory and communities. It is important to remark that the nomadism of these societies is not an example of archaic social organization previous to the evolution of contemporary societies and that the indigenous societies were not closed societies in contrast with modern open societies (cf. Viveiros de Castro, 2006). Indigenous thinkers reflect the nomadism as a condition to promote an ethical intercultural coexistence and mutual learning from cultural diversity. A Guarani educator reflected on this issue: We speak in this sense: each one should respect the other’s values. We pass this on to our children. When we speak of our territory, we are not talking only about the village in Jaraguá, but the whole territory we move through, that runs from the state of Paraná, São Paulo, Santa Catarina, Rio de Janeiro, Espírito Santo, it runs a long way. We speak of this, I tell the children like this, “This is our territory, wherever there are Guarani, it is our family”, so the children learn to have a broader view, so they don’t go saying “No, Jaraguá is my territory”. If we don’t pass this on, they won’t understand, they won’t imagine. […] This they have to learn, so when they grow up, they will pass it on to their children. (Macena, 2014)

Another reflection on this topic comes from Guarani and Kaiowá leader Carlito de Oliveira, expressing much sorrow about the restrictions imposed on indigenous peoples lands’ occupation. These restrictions result from the conflicts generated by colonization. In his understanding, this conflict would not exist if each people found more adequate ways of living with others, since the land, to begin with, does not have an owner: When he created this land, the whole world, he didn’t say this piece is for the white folk, this one here for the black, this one for the blue, this one for the Indians, this one I don’t know who’s getting it. He didn’t. The land is not just for the Indian, no. This soil here is for everyone. For everyone to live. But on this ground, we live fighting each other. (Speech from cacique Carlito de Oliveira, Guarani Kaiowa, in an interview for the documentary The Dark Side of Green, Baccaert et al., 2011)

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For Guarani people, the Yvyrupa is a land for all peoples, which need to find a way to live together promoting cultural and environmental diversity. In this sense, culture is not delimited by a state-nation in a fixed territory, but it is a product and a device of community life: “wherever there are Guarani, it is our family,” but in the same world-territory coexist Guarani and other peoples. A challenge for human life is to create ethically based coexistence. Different from the circus community, in which the community moves altogether within a surrounding nation-state society, the indigenous perspectives on migration emphasize the community as something that the person carries in his body, as it is cultivated according to the rituals of a community. Migrating, the person is able to find distinct communities that share similar rituals, acknowledging them as part of the same family tradition. Neighboring their communities, people coexist with other traditions, with which, ideally, friendly relations and exchanges can be established leading to mutual learning. Guarani thinkers also emphasize the relevance of a deep understanding and appropriating the values of someone’s own community in order to make the exchange with others more valuable. The two illustrations I gave here (circus itinerancy and Amerindian nomadism) present a situation very distinct from those discussed in this section of the book, opening up an opportunity to reflect on some general psychological aspects of cultural psychology in communities. Gamsakhurdia (2020) discusses the emergence of a “globalized” identity in the context of an individual migration between different nation-states. Migration promoted a creative reconstruction of the self through the affective-cognitive inclusion of the person in a broader category of “world citizen.” As citizenship is an aspect shared in these state-societies, considering the transitions of the self it is possible to observe a sort of subjective migration alongside the concrete migration. That is, a recursive movement from the particular to general, in which familiarity and strangeness is semiotically elaborated. I consider that a similar generalization is expected as the result of the upbringing-educational process of Mbya Guarani people, promoting the nomadism, in the which: “each one should respect the other’s values” (Macena, 2014). Nevertheless, there is an aspect of selfidentity that cannot be negotiated in both cases: being a Guarani person or being a citizen as a deep identity for the person. Abdulai (2020) also presents a discussion in the context of individualized international migration of academics that share distinct experiences and similar academic community lives in distinct countries. Some of the students carry on their bodies different cultural backgrounds since the sub-Saharan African societies share Westernized models of social organization, historically in conflict with the cultural traditions of African societies. This situation creates challenges for including these students as part of the

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receiving society. State control apparatuses tend to conform people to a rigid institutionalized way of living. Nevertheless, in the university, where innovation is expected, the purpose of assimilating the other is confronted with the resistance of people from distinct communities that keep their condition as foreigners. This tension brings contributions from a dialogue between different traditions and newly experienced community contexts. Seip (2020) reports on an art project that promotes the sharing of different cultural experiences of international migrants on the margins of the dominant state-society. It questions the stereotyping and reifying of cultural differences when the emphasis on cultures of origin is remarked in intercultural projects. Is possible to see that there is a contrast between cultivating communities from distinct cultural traditions and cultivating individuals to become agents in the present society. The inclusion of the person as an active citizen, self-determined as an individual is a promoted social path, cultivated in Western societies. Nevertheless, it is contrasted with other cultural traditions that demand a non-reducible relation of the personal system with the community and the environment. In this sense, being an individual citizen in relation to the state-societies is different from becoming a person in relation to a community. The first is a condition for the exercise of an institutionalized life that meets the demands of the state. The second is related to the temporality of the exchanges between people and the environment, which guides sub-personal systems, social tasks, requires a rhythmic tuning between the body/person and other surrounding bodies/people/environment. So, the meaning of songs and dances in an art project is not only related to a process of demarcating a difference in identity between people from distinct cultural backgrounds. It also makes viable an articulation between ancestral forms of organization of the person’s experience, establishing possible attunements with the new environment in which the current life course takes place. Céspedes and van Alphen (2020) approach the meaning-making process of the migrants about their aims when moving from a country to another. Here it is possible to observe that migration projects include heterogeneous paths of meaning that address, at least, three possibilities in the utterance of the interviewed people. First, the aim of becoming part of the society as a process of assimilation or fusion, accepting and adopting the way of living from the addressed communities. Second, the aim of keeping the community values and practices from the community of departure, seeking for friends and references that are more familiar in order to make a more comfortable life in the current country; revealing a strict cultural separation between both communities is the experience of multiculturalism. Third, the efforts of a dialogue between assimilation and multiculturalism, producing a negotiation of meanings, a resignification of the present experience with personal and community impacts. Forced or optional migration

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is a relevant affective-cognitive constraint in the process of semiotic elaboration of such experiences. Finally, García Palacios (2020) discusses the religious trajectories of indigenous children and youths that live in an urban context of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Here I observe an inverse situation in comparison to what I have previously discussed. Colonizers now occupy the ancestral Toba/ Qom territory. The migrants took control of the indigenous land and the community resists in a context of institutionalization of life. The school and religious institutions appear as state-society apparatus that continue to play a colonialist role in the contemporary life of the indigenous communities. Historically the education system and the Evangelic churches act proselytizing, promoting narratives, and conceptions that deny or silence indigenous perspectives on knowledge construction and cultivation of “spiritual” life. It is remarkable that in a context of divergence and dispute for the faithful of the youth, the indigenous community managed to support a subjective space of freedom. The elders do not impose the religion on the youth, allowing them to migrate and make choices in the diversity of restricted possibilities presented in the urban environment they had to live in. FINAL CONSIDERATIONS AND ADDITIONAL REFLECTIONS Contemporary cultural psychology understands human development as migration. We are all migrants because our living is in movement, towards exploring the unknown while holding on to the known (cf. Valsiner, 2007). Each person carries their homeland experiences where they go, and apprehend the world through the lens of what they have learned at home. Walking through the world, people are meeting things that belong to their origins, which fit their basic cultural references that cultivate psychological systems. Our previous studies on the itinerancy in the universe of the circus (Bastos, 2013, 2017; Bastos & Guimarães, 2014; Simão et al., 2015) showed some implications of this lifestyle for the constitution of the self, demanding the construction of strong community bonds, capable of overcoming daily difficulties, relating to difference, and performing complex, dynamic and highly challenging projects. For the Mbya Guarani, a traditionally nomad indigenous people from the South American lowlands, the structure that sustains the terrestrial world should be freely occupied by different human communities and cultures, even different beings (animals, plants, and the invisible). Nevertheless, the arrival of the White people created municipal, state, and federal borders, leading to the present segregation of their people in islands of indigenous territories. The effort of the educator towards the smaller children, in the Guarani bildung, is to make their circulation possible in

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a safe manner, making encounters with different people and experiences viable. Being able to move through a vast territory and be welcomed in different places, each child may build in a singular manner the meaning of life in community. Quite the opposite: in the urban context, young learners were demanded a sedentary discipline, in which their movement is controlled and they were required to obey hierarchically empowered adults: teachers, factory managers and state rules. The indigenous presence in the cities is not recent in Brazil, given that the first urban populations were settled in traditional indigenous territories, in the same place or close to their communities. These cities benefitted from indigenous knowledge and workforce. The indigenous ways of life were reorganized in colonial villages and they were transformed into rural or urban workers. In this process, promoted by religious missionaries and later by the Brazilian state, their cultural bonds are being intentionally concealed. The notion of ethnicity (from Greek ethnikos) was originally used to refer to the foreigners, heathen peoples, expressing an opposition between “us” and “the others.” Considering that an ethnic people share a common ethos, the cultural shock is, then, expected in the meeting of different cultural traditions. Cultural shock promotes disquieting experiences that emerge from the immersion of the person in an ethos that they are not accustomed to. The etymology of the word ethics goes back to the Greek notion of ethos, used to designate human ways of being and relating, contemporarily discussed as a mode of propitiating, configuring, shaping and constructing people and their worlds, including socially shared and secretive experiences (cf. Figueiredo, 1996/2013). Furthermore, is relevant to take into account the ethnocentrism as a basic characteristic of every people in the world (cf. Lévi-Strauss, 1952, 1965/1984; Viveiros de Castro, 2002/2006). The ethical-ethnic-cultural reflexivity should be included in the process of psychological theorization. The ethical dimensions concern the principles that guide human actions (values, norms, ideals, suitability, legitimacy etcetera) and that are culturally guided. The regular susceptibility of the psychologist to the culture of the other, such as the learning of the language of the other, improves the understanding and the awareness of the psychologist’s own culture and language (cf. Wagner, 1981/2010). Psychology emerged as a modern science since the Renaissance, articulating values and principles originated in the ancient Greek and Latin philosophies with Jewish and Christian values and principles that are present, for instance, in the humanist philosophies. The cultural cauldron that constituted the complex ethos of emerging modern European societies was confronted with the real and imaginary images of other peoples in the freshly explored lands all over the globe.

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As a tool for human reflexivity, psychology emerged in the context of intense and conflictive interethnic relationships. Therefore, it is not possible to identify psychology with the unfolding of a specific ethnic group. Its reflexivity was enriched by the interethnic and intercultural experiences reported by the travelers (cf. Jahoda, 1982), as far as different cultural traditions participated in the upbringing of the psychology of the 19th century. Nevertheless, the participation of the different cultural traditions is subjected to asymmetries in which hegemonic notions continue silencing emerging voices. Back to the modern criticism of traditional knowledge, based on the mythological and religious certainties (cf. Gadamer, 1954/2010), the epistemological reflection looked for strategies to methodically construct a subject able to represent the world free from any cultural mediation. The medieval empirical or rational apprehension of the world gave space, progressively, to the instrumental reasoning that instated new epistemological tribunals as a balcony that allowed and/or restricted the entrance of human fictions (culturally situated perspectives) in the realm of the modern sciences (Stengers, 2002). From the epistemological side, psychology emerged as a reflection about how the empirical subject could apprehend the reality; contemplate the world, free from the risk of producing illusion and bias in the process of knowledge construction. From the sociohistorical side, psychology emerged as a device for understanding the emergent sense of individuality and controlling its excess. These goals in the horizon of the emergent psychology end up being criticized in the advance of some psychological branches, making explicit the self-contradictory field in which antagonist and hybrid epistemological positions coexist (cf. Figueiredo, 1989/2009). The conflictive situation of psychology, being a science that does not fully identify itself with the principles of the instrumental reasoning that guided the modern sciences, situates the discipline in disquieting positions that foment a plurality of innovative propositions, more or less accepted in a territory of divergences, and seek for legitimacy. Considering that psychology is a discipline that faces the limits of the modern goal of constructing epistemic and individualized subjects, cultural and indigenous psychologies face it more intensively. This proposition acknowledges cultural psychologies that have made the ethical choice of dialoguing with the other—other subjects emerged in distinct cultural realities around the world—in the dialogical sense. In the dialogical sense, the other cannot be considered as a mere object of study. Therefore, the researchers and their interlocutors are all participants of a scientific investigation that produces asymmetric relationships about their topics of interest. From the intercultural relationships emerge forums of discussion where knowledge is constructed and organized for different purposes,

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for advances in theoretical reflection, in social and practical work, besides other possible explicit and implicit agendas, demanding constantly reflection on the multiple implications in the construction of investigative fields. Such awareness is crucial for cultural psychology (cf. Boesch, 1997, 2008) and carried forward in the framework of the semiotic-cultural constructivism (Simão, 2010, 2016; Guimarães, 2012, 2017). The purpose of cultural psychology is to produce general psychological theories about the cultural mediation of the Self, others and world relationships (cf. Valsiner, 2019). The criticism of the ethnocentric view of psychology demands the construction of dialogical forums with other ethnic conceptions, amplifying the emergence of self-contradictory conceptions in the field of Western traditions feeding the psychological development as a science. This inclusion leads to theoretical innovations, for instance, addressing the understanding of specificities concerning the dialogue in interethnic situations, but also allows the emergence of possible generalizations to other contexts of community experience and disquieting experiences—as each human being can be considered a foreigner to the other. In this vein, some epistemological principles need to be developed in order to make viable and legitimate knowledge constructions in a situation of ethnic diversity. First, the knowledge construction depends on the preliminary constitution of an ethically guided ground as a staging for coauthorship and innovation. Taking into account the notion of dialogue as coauthorship besides intersubjectivity (cf. Marková, 2003), the path for mutual understandings is not direct or transparent (cf. Ramussen, 2011), because of the opacity of the other and the unfolded, and unsolved, tensions that marks the differences between the I and the other. The selection of the topics of investigation emerges from the constituted ethical stage of mutual exchange concerning practices and ideas. Then, the researchers (and their interlocutors) need to be available to go deep into how all ethnic-cultural perspectives involved in the dialogues approach the topics selected for the investigations, transforming possible preliminary, preconceived, psychological conceptions and practices. Imposing the cultural values of the psychologists, their theories, and methodologies, without reflecting about their ethnic-cultural belonging and about the implications of their assertions to the people addressed in the investigative or professional work is problematic. It guides the necessary, even though insufficient, need for living the hermeneutic experience of negativity (cf. Simão, 2010) to knowledge construction on the interethnic border. The issue of alterity and human diversity guided psychological reflection from the very beginning of its constitution as science and profession. From an ethnic point of view, psychology unfolds the ethos of a specific human tradition, therefore, its terms, conceptions, and practices present limita-

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tions for its aimed universality as a science. How is it possible to integrate the cultural diversity in the construction of a general theorization that is effectively open and inclusive? By experimenting the world of the others, the construction of theoretical and methodological reflections in cultural psychology migrates to distinct communities that ground their knowledge construction in traditional values and practices that are not necessarily the same as the traditional (Western) psychologies. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP), process number 2018/13145-0. REFERENCES Abdulai, M. (2020). Exploring the tensions and possible transformations in talent mobility to Estonian universities. In F. van Alphen & S. Normann (Eds.), Cultural psychology in communities: Tensions and transformations. Information Age Publishing. Baccaert, A., Navarro, C., & Um, N. (2011). À sombra de um delírio verde [The dark side of green]. http://www.thedarksideofgreen-themovie.com/ Bastos, S. (2013). O circo e suas construções de sentido: um olhar para a perspectiva do circense sobre seu cotidiano [The circus and its construction of meaning: addressing the circus artist perspective on his own daily life] (Master thesis). Instituto de Psicologia, Universidade de São Paulo. https://doi. org/10.11606/D.47.2013.tde-20082013-100303 Retrieved December 8, 2019, from from www.teses.usp.br Bastos, S. (2017). Selves Itinerantes: A construção da confiança na temporalidade do circo [Itinerant selves: the construction of confidence in the temporality of the circus] (Doctoral dissertation). Instituto de Psicologia, Universidade de São Paulo. doi:10.11606/T.47.2018.tde-18012018-155704. Retrieved December 8, 2019, from www.teses.usp.br Bastos, S., & Guimarães, D. S. (2014). Cultural-affective bonds in field­research: Towards a semiotic­constructivist understanding of circus daily life. Psychology & Society, 6(2), 1–19. Boesch, E. E. (1997). Reasons for a symbolic concept of action. Culture & Psychology, 3(3), 423–431. Boesch, E. E. (2008). Book review reply: On subjective culture: In response to Carlos Cornejo. Culture & Psychology, 14(4), 498–512. https://doi. org/10.1177/1354067X08096516 Céspedes, E., & van Alphen, F. (2020). The migration project. Studying the narrative construction of migrant mobility in a non-linear way. In F. van

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS THE EDITORS Floor van Alphen is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM), Spain. She graduated in psychology and obtained a M.Sc. in general psychology as well as M.A. in philosophy of a specific science at the University of Amsterdam. She completed the UAM doctoral program on Development, Learning and Education, doing research in Argentina, related to national history learning and the community thus imagined. She continues to study collective memory and the appropriation of historical narratives in a cultural psychological vein, with a particular interest in youth, cultural diversity, embodiment and human mobility. Susanne Normann is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Development and the Environment (SUM), University of Oslo (UiO), Norway, and PhD Candidate at the Department of Psychology at UiO. Currently her research engages with critical community psychology, decoloniality, political ecology and cultural psychology, focusing on what climate change mitigation means for different Indigenous and traditional communities in Brazil and Norway.



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THE AUTHORS Muhammed Abdulai is a PhD candidate at the School of Governance, Law and Society, Tallinn University, Estonia, and a lecturer at the Faculty of Communication and Cultural Studies, Department of Communication, Innovation and Technology, University for Development studies (UDS), Ghana. Over the past eight years, he has taught, supervised, and reviewed numerous student projects and dissertations in African and European universities. His research interests are communication, culture and media, cross-cultural management and leadership, migration, and mobility. Seth Amofah is currently a PhD candidate in Sociology at Tallinn University, Estonia. His research interests include activities among development NGOs in Anglophone West Africa, focusing on poverty reduction and livelihood empowerment. He also researches issues related to urban sociology and development sociology in the context of social change. Andreas Astrup Andersen works within the field of counseling and organizational development. He graduated in Applied Philosophy and Psychology from Aalborg University. His research interests cover various subjects related to the psychology of virtually mediated behavior as well as social philosophical aspects of our structuring of professional and cultural communities. Sarah H. Awad is an Assistant Professor in sociocultural psychology at Aalborg University, Denmark. She received her PhD in Cultural Psychology from Aalborg University and her M.Sc. in social and cultural psychology from London School of Economics and Political Science. Her research interests are in the interrelation between the fields of cultural psychology, communication, and social development. She has explored the process by which individuals develop through times of life ruptures and social change using art and storytelling. She is also interested in visual culture and the analysis of urban images and their influence on identity, collective memory and politics within a society. Line Søberg Bjerre is a former associate professor at Aalborg University in Denmark. She graduated in Social work from Aalborg University and in Psychology from the University of Copenhagen. After working as a child psychologist, she enlisted as a PhD student at Aalborg University. Her PhD research engages with children in social work, child perspectives, meaning and emotionality, and social work understood through a lens of cultural psychology.

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Eva Céspedes teaches qualitative research at the Universidad Abierta Interamericana (UAI) in Argentina. She graduated in Education at the Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA). During her Master in Cognitive Psychology and Learning at the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO), she investigated narratives of experiences and meaning making with a particular interest in migration and diversity. Simon Coulombe is an Assistant Professor in Industrial Relations at Université Laval, Canada, and was an Assistant Professor in Community Psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada, at the time the chapter was written. His research focuses on environments that support the positive mental health and wellbeing of diverse populations, including workers in precarious employment situations, LGBTQ+ individuals, newcomers, and people living with physical disabilities and/or mental health issues. Vladimer Lado Gamsakhurdia is an assistant professor at Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University since 2016. He has taught courses on identity-construction, selfhood, psychological anthropology and cultural psychology. He researches such fundamental questions as the interplay between culture and personality throughout development and follows a developmental cultural psychological theoretical stance. Mariana García Palacios is a Full-Time Certified Career Researcher at the National Council of Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET), Argentina, for the Institute of Anthropological Sciences, Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA). She is also a Lecturer at the Department of Anthropology at the same University. She graduated in Sociocultural Anthropology (UBA), and obtained her PhD in Anthropology (UBA) doing research with Toba/Qom people in Buenos Aires. Since her undergraduate studies, she has been researching children’s constitution of social and religious knowledge from an ethnographical perspective that incorporates contributions from psychology. María Fernanda González is a professor of Psychology at the Health Sciences Faculty of the National University of Entre Ríos, Argentina. She received her PhD in Psychology from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (2005). She is interested in studying identity construction processes in various contexts. Recently, she has been involved in gender, health and citizenship studies, and its intersection with cultural psychology. She regularly participates in international research projects and networks with colleagues from Europe and Latin America.

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David Krzesni is a PhD candidate in Community Psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University. His research interest is promoting well-being among people facing adversity in the context of climate change through supporting people in pursuing their goals, encouraging critical reflection, and advocating for social change. Nikolai Stanley Kragh Lybæk is a Counsellor at the NGO headspace Denmark. He graduated in Applied Philosophy and Psychology from Aalborg University. His research interests are primarily based on phenomenology and cover the psychology of how virtually mediated interaction affects behavior in our online and offline lives. Hildegunn Marie Tønnessen Seip is an associate professor of psychology and intercultural studies at Ansgar University College in Kristiansand, Norway. With a background within communication and peace and conflict studies, she holds a PhD in psychology from the University of Oslo. Her research interests are manifold and often cross-disciplinary, including intercultural communication, intergroup and minority psychology, migration and integration, eco-psychology, and dance and embodiment in different cultural and religious contexts. Danilo Silva Guimarães is an associate professor at the Institute of Psychology, University of São Paulo, Brazil. He has been working on the history and philosophy of psychology, semiotic–cultural constructivism, indigenous psychology, and theoretical and methodological issues in psychology. Masakuni Tagaki is a professor at the Graduate School of Humanities and Sustainable System Sciences, Osaka Prefecture University in Japan. After completing his Bachelor of social welfare at the Kyoto Prefecture University, obtaining a Master’s degree in education and a PhD from the Kyoto University in Japan, he became interested in the narratives of people with physical disabilities and conducted action research in a local meeting of residents with disabilities. Recently he started to examine stories about the Japanese Discrimination Act on Disability. He is a coeditor of the Japanese Journal of Qualitative Psychology since 2019.