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Bresco. Psicología Cultural PDF
Bresco. Psicología Cultural PDF
Studies in Psychology
To cite this article: Ignacio Brescó, Mónica Roncancio, Angela Branco & Elsa Mattos
(2019): Cultural psychology: a two-way path between mind and culture / Psicología
cultural: un camino de ida y vuelta entre la mente y la cultura, Estudios de Psicología, DOI:
10.1080/02109395.2019.1565388
‘It is not expected of critics as it is of poets that they should help us to make sense
of our lives; they are bound only to attempt the lesser feat of making sense of the
ways we try to make sense of our lives’
(Kermode, 1966/1983, p. 15)
Cultural psychology studies how the mind and culture co-construct each
other. The fact that Lev Vygotsky’s work and so-called Soviet psychology
have become increasingly widespread in recent decades has resulted in
a progressive awareness of the cultural artefacts that mediate human behaviour,
thus placing it in the sociocultural context in which it takes place. Such an
approach implies moving away from the cognitivist tradition, focused primarily
on the study of the laws that govern mental processes, abstractly handled and
attributed to a hypothetical ideal type of subject of which, while considering its
biological basis, everything is ignored that makes it a human inevitably influ-
enced by a socio-historical context and a specific life trajectory.
Cultural psychology (Cole, 1996; Rosa, 2000; Valsiner, 1987), as an emer-
ging discipline, has focused mainly on studying the mediating effect derived
from the incorporation and use of different cultural artefacts on the ways we
interpret the world and act in it. On this basis, one of the main premises, as stated
by Wertsch (2002), is that ‘to be human is to use the cultural tools, or medita-
tional means, that are provided by a particular socio-cultural setting’ (p. 11). As
Cole (1996) points out, the concept of artefact goes beyond the particular notion
of tool, as it ranges from any type of physical utensil (primary artefacts) to
different imagined worlds (tertiary artefacts), through the ways whereby differ-
ent modes of action are preserved and socially transmitted, such as recipes,
beliefs, norms or constitutions (secondary artefacts). In this light, we can say
that ‘the properties of artefacts apply with equal force whether one is considering
language or the more usually noted forms of artefacts such as tables and knives,
which constitute material culture’ (Cole, 1996, p. 117). As Vygotsky states
(1978), the basic analogy between all these artefacts lies in their mediating and
regulatory function, both in relation to the world and with oneself. Thus, while
tools — in the ordinary acceptance of the term — externally mediate the
relationship between humans and their environment in order to influence and
command the latter, symbolic tools, such as language, are internally oriented and
mediate the individual’s relationship with themselves, thus regulating their own
behaviour. In fact, as pointed out by Vygotsky (1978), the use and continuous
renewal of such artefacts has allowed humans to go beyond the limits of a purely
biological development imposed by nature, and thus expand their psychological
functions, developing, as a result, new forms of behaviour. For instance,
advances in memory ability through human history and ontogeny can be
accounted for through the use of diverse cultural technologies — such as knots
on a rope, monuments or simply ‘chunking’ information into manageable units.
The efforts of cultural psychology to bring culture to psychology — rather
than to insert psychology into culture understood as an external variable of it —
has led to multiple lines of research in different fields — memory, identity,
education, creativity, emotions, etc. The main objective of this monographic
issue is to present some of the current lines of research in this field and make
them available to the Spanish-speaking world, taking advantage of the bilingual
opportunity offered by the journal Estudios de Psicología/Studies in Psychology.
This is particularly relevant since, despite the large number of publications, both
Cultural psychology: between mind and culture / Psicología cultural: entre la mente y la cultura 3
monographic (see Rosa & Valsiner, 2018; Valsiner, 2012; Valsiner, Marsico,
Chaudhary, Sato, & Dazzani, 2016; Valsiner & Rosa, 2007) and in journals
(Culture & Psychology, Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science),
there is not much literature in this field published in Spanish.
One of the greatest theoretical promoters of cultural psychology in recent
decades, Jaan Valsiner, opens this monograph with a paper entitled Cultural
psychology as a theoretical project: a project concerning the study of the
complexity of human psychological phenomena, considering the levels related
to their socio-genesis, ontogenesis and micro-genesis, that is, innovations pro-
duced in specific contexts. Valsiner introduces the example of cultural psychol-
ogy of semiotic dynamics as a theoretical-methodological framework focused on
the double function of signs operating in an irreversible time. From this per-
spective, signs are understood as tools aimed at regulating the current experi-
ence, on the one hand, and offering anticipatory functions for indeterminate
future experiences of a similar type, on the other.
Following this theoretical line, Alberto Rosa and his colleagues reflect on the
social construction of identity. In an original project carried out in collaboration
with theatre professionals, Rosa’s article studies the process by which actors
construct the identity of their characters when rehearsing different scenes in
a play. The paper concludes that the process of producing a scenic text can act
as a simulation model of how cultural artefacts, consciousness and behaviour
become interwoven when developing the identity of a character. Identity is also
the central focus in Zittoun and Levitan article, entitled A sociocultural psychology
of repeated mobility: dialogical challenges. This article explores the case of
families who continuously move around the world because of their professional
obligations. Taking a dynamic perspective of cultural psychology, the focus of this
study is the importance of time in a changing social world, and the different speeds
at which dialogical dynamics unfold in the relationships between individuals, on
the one hand, and between individuals and their social environment, on the other.
The next three articles in this issue relate to education and developmental
psychology. Following previous studies carried out in this field (Branco, 2015;
Valsiner, 2014), these articles focus on the semiotic processes that mediate educa-
tional practices and experiences in different institutional contexts, placing an
emphasis on the subject’s role as an agent when it comes to renegotiating and
reconfiguring such practices. On this basis, the article by Borges and Branco
analyses multidimensional expressions of violence in different practices observed
in school contexts, and more specifically in a public school in a depressed
neighbourhood near Brasilia, Brazil. The study identifies and analyses different
forms of interpersonal violence, as well as various factors involved in the emer-
gence and reproduction of violent patterns of interaction, especially among stu-
dents, but also among other members of the school community. Also focusing on
an institutional framework, the article by Moreno and Packer presents the results
of a five-year project carried out in Ciudad Bolívar, Colombia. Based on
Vygotsky’s assumption, according to which research phenomena should be studied
within contexts that allow them to grow and change in a specific organized social
4 I. Brescó et al.
framework, the article explores how children from Ciudad Bolívar understand and
participate in the dynamics of an institutional context created by the authors
themselves. Roncancio and Mattos present two related studies on the transition
process from childhood to early adolescence; their work explores the mediating
role of drawings, through which children can create and recreate new images of
how they imagine themselves in the future. Departing from cultural psychology of
semiotic dynamics as a reference framework, the authors put forward the notion of
self-imagining (as an alternative to self-image) in order to emphasize the active
role of individuals in the construction of their life trajectory, including the way
they project themselves towards the future.
Finally, the last block of articles reflects on the mediating role of different
cultural artefacts — such as narratives, monuments and physical or symbolic
borders — associated with different psychological processes, such as memory,
mourning and our sensory perceptions in different urban spaces. Interest in the role
of narratives has been gaining prominence over the last decades, both in the field
of human sciences in general (Polkinghorne, 1988) and in the field of psychology
in particular (Brockmeier & Harré, 2001; Bruner, 1991). In the specific case of
psychology, this role — defended by some authors who were previously com-
mitted to what was known as the cognitive revolution — has fostered the study of
how narrative forms mediate our experience, the way we reconstruct the past — be
it individual or collective — as well as the way we imagine different possible
worlds (Bruner, 1986). The study by Lojo and de la Mata, Memories of the
dictatorship in Spain: an analysis of the narratives from three generations, falls
within such a theoretical framework. In a similar vein, the article by Brescó and
Wagoner also focuses on collective memory, although the focus is on the mediat-
ing role of memorials as artefacts that generate different social practices of
remembrance. More specifically, this article analyses how mourning and collective
memory are experienced and expressed through modern memorials, characterized
by their abstract and minimalist style. Finally, Tateo and Marsico close the
monograph with an article that explores the concept of borders in daily city life.
Through an interesting self-ethnographic study, the authors analyse, from a micro-
genetic perspective, how material and immaterial boundaries act as semiotic
regulators of affective experience in certain urban spaces.
We hope that these nine contributions comprising this monograph, based on
research carried out in different countries, will enrich the debate within this
discipline: a discipline that cannot ignore the importance of the different cultural
artefacts created throughout the history of humanity to make sense of the world
and guide human behaviour within it. If, as Vygotsky stated, the invention and
continuous renewal of cultural artefacts has enabled human beings to overcome
the limits of purely biological development, we hope that a psychology that is
more open to the sociocultural condition of the human being can provide us with
better tools to overcome existing reductionist visions of our psyche.
Cultural psychology: between mind and culture / Psicología cultural: entre la mente y la cultura 5
‘It is not expected of critics as it is of poets that they should help us to make sense
of our lives; they are bound only to attempt the lesser feat of making sense of the
ways we try to make sense of our lives’
(Kermode, 1966/1983, p. 15)
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors / Los autores no han referido
ningún potencial conflicto de interés en relación con este artículo.
References / Referencias
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Brockmeier, J., & Carbaugh, D. (Eds.). (2001). Narrative and identity: Studies in
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Bruner, J. (1991). The narrative construction of reality. Critical Inquire, 17(Autumm),
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Cultural psychology: between mind and culture / Psicología cultural: entre la mente y la cultura 9
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