Jaan Valsiner

Tania Zittoun

Dieter Ferring

Miguel M. Gonçalves

Dankert Vedeler

João Salgado

This book shows how individuals develop a unique style or 'melody' of living, beyond physical and social constraints.

Melodies of Living

Human Development in the Life Course

Vlad Gl&aveanu

Imagination allows individuals and groups to think beyond the here-and-now, to envisage alternatives, to create parallel worlds, and to mentally travel through time. Imagination is both extremely personal (for example, people imagine unique futures for themselves) and deeply social, as our imagination is fed with media and other shared representations. As a result, imagination occupies a central position within the life of mind and society. Expanding the boundaries of disciplinary approaches, the Handbook of Imagination and Culture expertly illustrates this core role of imagination in the development of children, adolescents, adults, and older persons today. Bringing together leading scholars in sociocultural psychology and neighboring disciplines from around the world, this edited volume guides readers towards a much deeper understanding of the conditions of imagining, its resources, its constraints, and the consequences it has on different groups of people in different domains of society. Summarily, this Handbook places imagination at the center, and offers readers new ways to examine old questions regarding the possibility of change, development, and innovation in modern society.

Handbook of Imagination and Culture

This brief presents the case study of a hill in Czech Republic (Říp) and its region, and contributes to theorization in sociocultural psychology on three points, along three current debates. First, it contributes to the exploration of the mutual constitution of the lifecourse and of history, uses a distinction between socio-, micro- and ontogenesis, and argues that a focus on a delimited geographical space enables to better observe the processes by which history, daily situated interactions and courses of life shape each other. Second, in doing so, it sketches an understanding of the role of the material, spatial and semiotic specificities of landscapes in human development. Especially, it identifies some of the processes by which redundant dynamic patterns present in the environment may participate to the guidance of human experience. Third, it expands the reflection on case study construction and generalization. On the one side, it participates to a current debate in cultural psychology on the dynamics of generalization from single cases; on the other, it also dialogues with a more general reflection in the social sciences on social dynamics at the scale of small regions. Altogether, this brief is a first attempt to examine jointly these questions at the scale of a small region, a unique natural laboratory of social and psychological change. It will be of interest to researchers as well as graduate students in the fields of cultural and sociocultural psychology, cognitive psychology, and the social sciences.

A Case Study of a Hill

Sociocultural Psychology on the Regional Scale

Brady Wagoner

Liminality has become a key concept within the social sciences, with a growing number of publications devoted to it in recent years. The concept is needed to address those aspects of human experience and social life that fall outside of ordered structures. In contrast to the clearly defined roles and routines that define so much of industrial work and economic life, it highlights spaces of transition, indefiniteness, ambiguity, play and creativity. Thus, it is an indispensable concept and a necessary counterweight to the overemphasis on structural influences on human behavior. This book aims to use the concept of liminality to develop a culturally and experientially sensitive psychology. This is accomplished by first setting out an original theoretical framework focused on understanding the ‘liminal sources of cultural experience,’ and second an application of concept to a number of different domains, such as tourism, pilgrimage, aesthetics, children’s play, art therapy, and medical diagnosis. Finally, all these domains are then brought together in a concluding commentary chapter that puts them in relation to an overarching theoretical framework. This book will be useful for graduate students and researchers in cultural psychology, critical psychology, psychosocial psychology, developmental psychology, health psychology, anthropology and the social sciences, cultural studies among others.

Experience on the Edge: Theorizing Liminality

Drawing on philosophy, the history of psychology and the natural sciences, this book proposes a new theoretical foundation for the psychology of the life course. It features the study of unique individual life courses in their social and cultural environment, combining the perspectives of developmental and sociocultural psychology, psychotherapy, learning sciences and geronto-psychology. In particular, the book highlights semiotic processes, specific to human development, that allow us to draw upon past experiences, to choose among alternatives and to plan our futures. Imagination is an important outcome of semiotic processes and enables us to deal with daily constraints and transitions, and promotes the transformation of social representation and symbolic systems - giving each person a unique style, or 'melody', of living. The book concludes by questioning the methodology and epistemology of current life course studies.

Alex Gillespie

This book positions imagination as a central concept which increases the understanding of daily life, personal life choices, and the way in which culture and society changes. Case studies from micro instances of reverie and daydreaming, to utopian projects, are included and analysed. The theoretical focus is on imagination as a force free from immediate constraints, forming the basis of our individual and collective agency. In each chapter, the authors review and integrate a wide range of classic and contemporary literature culminating in the proposal of a sociocultural model of imagination. The book takes into account the triggers of imagination, the content of imagination, and the outcomes of imagination. At the heart of the model is the interplay between the individual and culture; an exploration of how the imagination, as something very personal and subjective, grows out of our shared culture, and how our shared culture can be transformed by acts of imagination. Imagination in Human and Cultural Development offers new perspectives on the study of psychological learning, change, innovation and creativity throughout the lifespan. The book will appeal to academics and scholars in the fields of psychology and the social sciences, especially those with an interest in development, social change, cultural psychology, imagination and creativity.

Imagination in Human and Cultural Development

What do young people do with the novels they read, the films they see, the music they hear and sing? How do these cultural products act as ‘symbolic resources’ in the process of development? And what can we, as researchers, learn by studying people’s uses of fiction? This monograph approaches development through the study of transitions and the processes of exploration that follow ruptures in people’s lives. Specifically, it examines young people’s symbolic responsibility as they have to choose among the wide range of cultural products societies exposes them to. The book thus examines the books, films and music that young people mobilize when they need to redefine their identity, learn informal knowhow, or have to confer meaning to what happens to them in transitions. The book has a theoretical scope. It draws on cultural psychology and psychoanalysis to formulate the importance of semiotic mediation in thinking, feeling and acting. Its main contribution is to propose a model for analyzing uses of symbolic resources, such as books and films, in everyday life. It thus shows how uses of symbolic resources can enable new forms of experiences and conduct. It finally highlights social and personal conditions that might facilitate or hinder developmental uses of symbolic resources. The book, based on indepth case studies, is addressed to scholars, professional and students in the fields of youth, culture and the media, cultural and developmental psychology, and lifelong education.

Tania Zittoun

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