Tania Zittoun - Böcker

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.

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.

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.

Joining Society asks precise questions: To what are the young socialized? Which skills, modes of thinking or action are required from them and what are their developmental value? Socialization tends to be viewed within the confines of a particular geographical or cultural situation. The multi-national list of contributors brings an international perspective to the problem of socialization to work and to adult life, while at the same time emphasizing the common issues that face youth around the world. Some of the topics addressed are the rules and roles involved in socialization, attaining personal agency through collective activity, use of new technologies, and the role of intergenerational relationships. This book sheds new light on the processes through which society may hope to intervene in positive ways with today's youth.

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.

Joining Society asks precise questions: To what are the young socialized? Which skills, modes of thinking or action are required from them and what are their developmental value? Socialization tends to be viewed within the confines of a particular geographical or cultural situation. The multi-national list of contributors brings an international perspective to the problem of socialization to work and to adult life, while at the same time emphasizing the common issues that face youth around the world. Some of the topics addressed are the rules and roles involved in socialization, attaining personal agency through collective activity, use of new technologies, and the role of intergenerational relationships. This book sheds new light on the processes through which society may hope to intervene in positive ways with today's youth.

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.

Despite rising life expectancies and growing attention to the increasing proportion of older persons in rich democracies, we still know surprisingly little about how people develop after 60. This book proposes an integrative approach to development in older age that expands sociocultural psychology across the life course. It shows that people develop into older age while acting, feeling, remembering, imagining, and moving in the spaces where they live and interact with others. The diversity and singularity of ageing trajectories is also studied, highlighting how deeply the environment can guide and support as well as expand upon or offer resources to older persons. The author demonstrates the role of carefully designed social and institutional settings and well-planned ageing policies in fostering 'ageing in place'. By exploring housing, formal and informal care networks, and everyday arrangements that help older persons live meaningful lives, this volume speaks to anyone concerned with ageing.

Despite rising life expectancies and growing attention to the increasing proportion of older persons in rich democracies, we still know surprisingly little about how people develop after 60. This book proposes an integrative approach to development in older age that expands sociocultural psychology across the life course. It shows that people develop into older age while acting, feeling, remembering, imagining, and moving in the spaces where they live and interact with others. The diversity and singularity of ageing trajectories is also studied, highlighting how deeply the environment can guide and support as well as expand upon or offer resources to older persons. The author demonstrates the role of carefully designed social and institutional settings and well-planned ageing policies in fostering 'ageing in place'. By exploring housing, formal and informal care networks, and everyday arrangements that help older persons live meaningful lives, this volume speaks to anyone concerned with ageing.

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.

Tania Zittoun demonstrates that there is pleasure in thinking, and that the pleasure of thinking plays a key role in our lives - in the development of children, in learning, in adult life, and in ageing. Drawing on arts and philosophy, exploring research in developmental psychology, cultural psychology, and psychoanalysis, it highlights five modalities of thinking: curiosity, the functional pleasure of pursuing a task, the pleasure of discovery, the dialogical pleasure of thinking with others, and a meta-pleasure. This book proposes a unique integrative model of thinking, conceived as a situated activity, following trajectories that combine modalities of pleasure. Evolving with time, the pleasure of thinking can take place as we reason, make sense, or daydream, at school, at work, when we garden, or do science. Academics and graduate students in sociocultural, critical, developmental, and cognitive psychology will benefit from The Pleasure of Thinking.

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 know-how, 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 in-depth case studies, is addressed to scholars, professional and students in the fields of youth, culture and the media, cultural and developmental psychology, and life-long education.

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 know-how, 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 in-depth case studies, is addressed to scholars, professional and students in the fields of youth, culture and the media, cultural and developmental psychology, and life-long education.

This book explores how psychoanalysis can enrich and complement sociocultural psychology. It presents theoretical integrations of psychoanalytical notions in the sociocultural framework, analyzes the historical similarities, if not intricacies, of the two fields, and presents papers that have tried to apply an enriched theoretical framework in developmental and clinical empirical work. The first section presents editors' theoretical proposition for an integration of one particular stream of psychoanalysis within sociocultural psychology, which emphasizes both the dialogical and the semiotic nature of psychological dynamics. The second section pursues this theoretical dialogue through a historical perspective. The third section pursues the implications of this parallel reasoning. It invites researchers that propose further syntheses between some strands of psychoanalysis and approaches within social and cultural psychology. The contributions collected in this section show how sociocultural psychology and psychoanalysis can complement each other, when it comes to tracing the emergence of meaning in actual interactive settings.Showing historical common roots, epistemological similarities, and theoretical complementarities, this book intends to suggests how the encounter and reciprocal contamination between cultural psychology and psychoanalysis could provide innovative theoretical and methodological syntheses. Through the various contributions three directions of development emerge as particularly promising for psychological science. Firstly, the semiotic conceptualization of affects, emerging from several of the contributors, appears to be a significant step ahead in the understanding of the dynamics of sense-making. A second promising direction of development concerns methodology. The reader will find several invitations to rethink the way of analyzing the phenomena of sense-making. Finally, the volume highlights how the connection between theory and practice in psychology is not a mere matter of application. Rather, the psychological intervention could be – needs to be – a theoretical object for cultural psychology, as it already is for psychoanalysis. At the same time, the intervention could be a fertile domain where a psychological practice endowed with reflexive capability generates new theoretical constructions.

This book explores how psychoanalysis can enrich and complement sociocultural psychology. It presents theoretical integrations of psychoanalytical notions in the sociocultural framework, analyzes the historical similarities, if not intricacies, of the two fields, and presents papers that have tried to apply an enriched theoretical framework in developmental and clinical empirical work. The first section presents editors' theoretical proposition for an integration of one particular stream of psychoanalysis within sociocultural psychology, which emphasizes both the dialogical and the semiotic nature of psychological dynamics. The second section pursues this theoretical dialogue through a historical perspective. The third section pursues the implications of this parallel reasoning. It invites researchers that propose further syntheses between some strands of psychoanalysis and approaches within social and cultural psychology. The contributions collected in this section show how sociocultural psychology and psychoanalysis can complement each other, when it comes to tracing the emergence of meaning in actual interactive settings.Showing historical common roots, epistemological similarities, and theoretical complementarities, this book intends to suggests how the encounter and reciprocal contamination between cultural psychology and psychoanalysis could provide innovative theoretical and methodological syntheses. Through the various contributions three directions of development emerge as particularly promising for psychological science. Firstly, the semiotic conceptualization of affects, emerging from several of the contributors, appears to be a significant step ahead in the understanding of the dynamics of sense-making. A second promising direction of development concerns methodology. The reader will find several invitations to rethink the way of analyzing the phenomena of sense-making. Finally, the volume highlights how the connection between theory and practice in psychology is not a mere matter of application. Rather, the psychological intervention could be – needs to be – a theoretical object for cultural psychology, as it already is for psychoanalysis. At the same time, the intervention could be a fertile domain where a psychological practice endowed with reflexive capability generates new theoretical constructions.

This brief presents the case study of a hill in Czech Republic (Ríp) and its region, and contributes to theorization in sociocultural psychology on three points, along three current debates. on the other, it also dialogues with a more general reflection in the social sciences on social dynamics at the scale of small regions.

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.

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.