Doping Existential Despair: Mindful of the Exotic Lure.

The paper builds on (von Fircks, E. Integr. psych. Behav. Sci. 2023) article on mindfulness meditation analysed in a Meadian perspective. First, the selective appropriation of some concepts by hegemonic psychology is critically discussed. Then, the consequences of adopting the whole philosophical system of Eastern perspectives are envisaged. Finally, a proposal for a truly ecological shift in the study of self is proposed.

Historical Development of Political-Critical Thinking in Colombian Psychology / Desarrollo Histórico del Pensamiento Político-Crítico en la Psicología Colombiana

Abstract The study traces the historical elements that have influenced the development of political-critical thinking in Colombian Psychology. Four historical periods have been identified and discussed: The intellectual colonialism of Colombian Psychology (1947-1960); the social Psychiatry in the years of La comisión [The commission] (1961-1980); the community Psychology and the coexistence (1980-1991); and the psychosocial studies after recent peace processes between government and armed groups (1991-2018). Colombian political Psychology did not follow a homogeneous and linear development. The reality experienced by Colombians during more than five decades of armed conflict required Psychology to abandon the direct paths of politics and opt for psychosocial studies that promise to be the most radical heirs of a generation of Latin American critical thinking as represented by Ignacio Martín-Baró, Maritza Montero and Silvia Lane.

Resumen El estudio rastrea los elementos históricos que han influido en el desarrollo del pensamiento político-crítico en la psicología colombiana. Se identifican y discuten cuatro periodos históricos: el colonialismo intelectual de la psicología colombiana (1947-1960); la psiquiatría social en los años de La Comisión (1961-1980); la psicología comunitaria y la convivencia (1980-1991); y, finalmente, los estudios psicosociales tras los recientes procesos de paz entre el Gobierno y los grupos armados (1991-2018). La psicología política colombiana no siguió un desarrollo homogéneo y lineal. La realidad vivida por los colombianos durante más de cinco décadas de conflicto armado exigió que la psicología abandonara los caminos directos de la política y optara por los estudios psicosociales que prometen ser los herederos más radicales de una generación de pensamiento crítico latinoamericano representada por Ignacio Martín-Baró, Maritza Montero y Silvia Lane.

Remaking time: Cultural semiotic transformations of temporality during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown.

This paper investigates one aspect of meaning making that occurs in the wake of systemic change. It addresses the question of how time is re-configured by socio-material changes resultant from the COVID-19 pandemic. Employing a semiotic perspective, we aim to describe a process of disruption and distress, which leads to a recognition of the oddness of 'covid-time.' This is characterised by distressing 'suspended waiting', a despairing frozen temporality. After this, this odd covid-time is semiotically assimilated into the old and familiar. Distressing 'suspended time' is transformed into 'productive time', 'normal time', and 'transformational time' as an attempt to regulate affect. By highlighting this semiotic shift, the theory of the Cultural Psychology of Semiotic Dynamics (Valsiner, 2014) is used to highlight how meaning is constructed using cultural resources.

University without Borders.

The paper discusses the problem of master theses' production in psychology from a decolonial perspective. It presents a critique to the reproductive and monological model of knowledge currently promoted in higher education. Then, it proposes an alternative pedagogic model of research-tandem. The research-tandem is an example of an innovative way of understanding a university without borders, as developed within the international network of excellence "IBEF- Ideas for the Basic Education of the Future". Higher education must be detached from national-based curricula, and become a nomadic and collaborative across-cultural knowledge building endeavor. Current higher education aims to be national in its curricula but global in its marketability. In cultural psychology's perspective, higher education of the future shall be regarded as global in its vision yet local in its solutions. Future students must have the opportunity to build new knowledge by experiencing and sharing diversity rather than complying with standardized and monological trajectories.

Dramatizing Living-in-the-World: Affective Generalization in Drama-in-Education Workshop.

Drama-in-Education workshops (DiE) emphasize on balancing between teacher's delicate structuring and participants' spontaneous exploration and creation in dramatic activities and thus can be a powerful liminoid space to scaffold and facilitate young people's development. Still, more researches are needed to dig into and understand such a dynamic and complex process happening in the workshop. In this article, we presented the theoretical background of conceptualizing drama as a hybrid cultural-aesthetic form to identify its potential in educational guidance. The perspective of developmental cultural psychology was introduced to frame DiE practice as a catalytic process working on releasing and transforming participants' developmental forces. The hierarchical levels of semiotic mediation in cultural psychology can help to capture participants' affective and cognitive generalizations in semiotic forms and to perform a micro-genetic analysis of the flow of participants' subjective experiences. We also provided a step-by-step analysis of a DiE practice working with young Chinese immigrants to illuminate our theoretical proposal.

A voz das mentes famintas: a relevância de Danilo Dolci para a Psicologia Cultural da Educação / The voice of hungry minds: the relevance of Danilo Dolci for the Cultural Psychology of Education

Danilo Dolci (1924-1997) foi um intelectual italiano, ativista social, sociólogo, educador popular e poeta, que passou a maior parte de sua vida nas áreas rurais da Sicília, tentando desenvolver uma visão progressista da educação como parte da emancipação da população da pobreza e do crime organizado. O cerne da pedagogia de Dolci era a ideia do cidadão como aprendiz e do aprendiz como cidadão. O ideal de educação promovido, também se referindo a Freire e Gandhi, era o de "cidadão do mundo", capaz de superar uma atitude colonialista e opressora. Ao contrário, o que o sujeito é se origina nas raízes culturais e o torna capaz de reconhecer que ele é igual às outras pessoas no mundo. Para desenvolver seu ideal pedagógico, Dolci apostou na estética e na práxis, reconhecendo o valor do ser humano como parte da natureza. Finalmente, discute-se neste trabalho como as visões de Dolci sobre a educação podem fornecer novas perspectivas úteis para o desenvolvimento da psicologia cultural da educação.

Danilo Dolci (1924-1997) was an Italian intellectual, social activist, sociologist, popular educator, and poet, who spent his life in the rural areas of Sicily, trying to develop a progressive view of education as part of the population's development and liberation from both poverty and organized crime. The core of Dolci's pedagogy was the idea of the citizen as a learner and the learner as a citizen. His ideal of education, also referring to Freire and Gandhi, was the "citizen of the world", able to overcome a colonialist and oppressive attitude to say that one's own heritage is better than any other in the world. Instead, to Dolci, what I am originates in my cultural roots and makes me able to recognize that I am equal to the other people in the world. To develop his pedagogical ideal, Dolci relies on aesthetics and praxis, recognizing the value of the human being as part of the nature. I finally discuss how Dolci's views on education can provide new useful perspectives to the development of the cultural psychology of education.

The Golem of Psychology and the Ecosystemic Epistemology.

The old controversy about the epistemic status of psychological sciences is useless and sterile. Psychology is ether a hard science nor a soft science. It is an ecological life science, whose object is the whole system of co-developmental relations constituted by the presence of the organism in a given environment. After criticizing the positions of the traditional epistemic debate between hard and soft views of psychology, I propose a way to fundament the core concepts in the method of complementary negation, based on cogenetic logic. Then, I defend the need to develop a third way: an ecological epistemology of psychology.

"Well Now we Have Entered University and So On, but". Autodialogue and Circumvention Strategies in Reflections about Being a University Student.

In higher education, there is nowadays a production of discourses about the negative effects of academic life on the well-being of the students. In the specific Danish context, we wondered how to understand the process involved in coping with problems and decisions of everyday life. To investigate this question, we present an empirical study on the microgenetic processes unfolding when students discuss their experiences with peers. We develop Josephs and Valsiner's (Social Psychology Quarterly, 61,(1), 68-82, 1998) concepts of circumvention strategies and autodialogue. The study covers 2 focus-group discussions among 2nd semester psychology students aged 20-25, attending the same psychology course at a Danish university. The students were presented with a dilemmatic situation, that they are required make sense of, based on minimal information, by integrating it in their own representations, expectations and life experiences. Our analysis suggests that the students' investment of meaning in themselves and others often occurred through autodialogical negotiation. In such negotiations, circumvention strategies offer the students a solution, enabling them not to get stuck in a dilemma between two oppositional ways of relating to a certain issue, or offers them a new and less upsetting perspective. These findings suggest that reaching a conclusion about themselves and their experience is not just a clear-cut process of making a statement, but a dynamic and complex process in which multiple perspectives and meanings are in play.

Education as "Dilemmatic Field".

Psychology of education must discuss a number of relevant ethical, political and societal issues that cannot be simply overlooked as non pertinent to the discipline. For too long educational and developmental psychology have take divergent routes and have not enough dialogued with other fields such as pedagogy. I argue that it is first of all necessary to conceptualize the work of schooling, that is educational processes of teaching and learning in specific social contexts, as complex and dilemmatic fields. I discuss contributions from the past and current debate to support my claim that education is inherently ambivalent and dilemmatic, while educational psychology is too often normative and prescriptive. As many authors have discussed educational processes as battlefields between political and economic tendencies, we cannot avoid to discuss the relationship of such tendencies and the developmental processes of the person. The work of schooling is an action projected towards an imagined future, and educational psychology cannot avoid questioning the predictions emerging from the current socio-economic and political trends.

Borders, Tensegrity and Development in Dialogue.

In this article we propose a development of the Dialogical Self Theory by introducing the notions of borders, cogenetic logic and tensegrity that we have elaborated during the last 5 years, in order to introduce a stronger developmental and dynamic perspective within the theory. We start from the discussion of some recent advancements of the model proposed by Hermans et al. (Integrative Psychological and Behavioural Science, 51(4), 2017), who refer to the metaphor of democratic society of the Self to understand the challenges and possible directions of adaptation that the persons can face in those border-crossing processes characterizing contemporary western societies. We conceptualized the Self as a dynamic semiotic system in constant evolutive tension, rather than a system in equilibrium adapting to the environmental changing conditions. Then, we propose to replace the concept of stability and continuity of the Self with the more fruitful idea of tensional integrity.

The psychological imagination / Imaginação psicológica / L'imagination psychologique / La imaginación psicológica

Abstract: The commentary presents an epistemological reflection about Dialogical Self theory. First, the theoretical issues of DS about the relationship between individuality, alterity and society are discussed, elaborating on the articles of this special issue. Then, it is presented the argument of psychologist's ontological fallacy, that is the attitude to moving from the study of processes to the study of psychological entities. Finally a development toward new research directions is proposed, focusing on the study of higher psychological functions and processes, taking into account complex symbolic products of human activity and developing psychological imagination.

Resumo: O comentário apresenta uma reflexão epistemológica sobre a teoria do Self Dialógico. Inicialmente, são discutidas questões teóricas da TSD sobre a relação entre individualidade, alteridade e sociedade, elaboradas com base nos artigos que constam desse número especial. Em seguida, discute-se o argumento da falácia ontológica, ou seja, a atitude de se desviar do estudo do processo para estudar entidades psicológicas. Por fim, propõe-se o desenvolvimento em direção a novas possibilidades de pesquisa, com foco no estudo das funções e dos processos psicológicos superiores, levando em consideração os produtos simbólicos complexos da atividade humana e a imaginação psicológica em desenvolvimento.

Résumé: Le commentaire présente une réflexion épistémologique sur la Théorie du Soi Dialogique. Tout d'abord, ils sont abordées les questions théoriques de la DS sur la relation entre l'individualité, l'altérité et la société, en élaborant sur les articles dans ce numéro spécial. Ensuite, on présente l'argument de le sophisme ontologique des psychologues, à savoir la passage de l'étude des processus à l'étude des entités psychologiques. On propose enfin un développement vers des nouvelles directions de recherche, en se concentrant sur l'étude des fonctions et des processus psychologiques supérieurs, tout en tenant compte des produits symboliques complexes de l'activité humaine et le développement de l'imagination psychologique.

Resumen: Este texto presenta una reflexión epistemológica sobre la teoría del Self Dialógico. En primer lugar, se discuten las cuestiones de esta teoría sobre la relación entre individualidad, alteridad y sociedad, desarrollando las ideas articuladas en los artículos en este número especial. A continuación, se presenta el argumento de la falacia ontológica de los psicólogos, que es la actitud de pasar del estudio de los procesos al estudio de las entidades psicológicas. Finalmente se propone un desarrollo de nuevas formas de investigación, centrándose en el estudio de las funciones y los procesos psicológicos superiores, teniendo en cuenta los productos simbólicos complejos de la actividad humana y el desarrollo de la imaginación psicológica.

The psychological imagination / Imaginação psicológica / L'imagination psychologique / La imaginación psicológica

The commentary presents an epistemological reflection about Dialogical Self theory. First, the theoretical issues of DS about the relationship between individuality, alterity and society are discussed, elaborating on the articles of this special issue. Then, it is presented the argument of psychologist's ontological fallacy, that is the attitude to moving from the study of processes to the study of psychological entities. Finally a development toward new research directions is proposed, focusing on the study of higher psychological functions and processes, taking into account complex symbolic products of human activity and developing psychological imagination.(AU)

O comentário apresenta uma reflexão epistemológica sobre a teoria do Self Dialógico. Inicialmente, são discutidas questões teóricas da TSD sobre a relação entre individualidade, alteridade e sociedade, elaboradas com base nos artigos que constam desse número especial. Em seguida, discute-se o argumento da falácia ontológica, ou seja, a atitude de se desviar do estudo do processo para estudar entidades psicológicas. Por fim, propõe-se o desenvolvimento em direção a novas possibilidades de pesquisa, com foco no estudo das funções e dos processos psicológicos superiores, levando em consideração os produtos simbólicos complexos da atividade humana e a imaginação psicológica em desenvolvimento.(AU)

Le commentaire présente une réflexion épistémologique sur la Théorie du Soi Dialogique. Tout d'abord, ils sont abordées les questions théoriques de la DS sur la relation entre l'individualité, l'altérité et la société, en élaborant sur les articles dans ce numéro spécial. Ensuite, on présente l'argument de le sophisme ontologique des psychologues, à savoir la passage de l'étude des processus à l'étude des entités psychologiques. On propose enfin un développement vers des nouvelles directions de recherche, en se concentrant sur l'étude des fonctions et des processus psychologiques supérieurs, tout en tenant compte des produits symboliques complexes de l'activité humaine et le développement de l'imagination psychologique.(AU)

Este texto presenta una reflexión epistemológica sobre la teoría del Self Dialógico. En primer lugar, se discuten las cuestiones de esta teoría sobre la relación entre individualidad, alteridad y sociedad, desarrollando las ideas articuladas en los artículos en este número especial. A continuación, se presenta el argumento de la falacia ontológica de los psicólogos, que es la actitud de pasar del estudio de los procesos al estudio de las entidades psicológicas. Finalmente se propone un desarrollo de nuevas formas de investigación, centrándose en el estudio de las funciones y los procesos psicológicos superiores, teniendo en cuenta los productos simbólicos complejos de la actividad humana y el desarrollo de la imaginación psicológica.(AU)

Gulliver's Eggs: Why Methods are not an Issue of Qualitative Research in Cultural Psychology.

The future of qualitative methods regards the kind of object cultural psychology is interested and the kind of questions it can ask. I propose that the object should be experiencing, understood as a complex whole, consisting of lived-by action and counter-action, that is contextual inter-action with the world in the form of an experiencing subject and otherness. The kind of questions cultural psychology can ask is instead related to the epistemological status attributed to both researcher and participant. Probably few scholars such as Vygotsky, Piaget and Lewin understood to what extent experiencing is always changing, because the relationship between mind, alterity and culture is co-generative. This also implies a relativization and a decentralization of the psychology's perspective. Finally, I provide some examples from the history of psychology and some suggestions to work at the level of such complexity by using methods that can work with complex objects such as products of human activity (e.g., art, literature, architecture, etc.).

Science at the supermarket: multiplication, personalization and consumption of science in everyday life.

Which is the kind science's psychological guidance upon everyday life? I will try to discuss some issues about the role that techno-scientific knowledge plays in sense-making and decision making about practical questions of life. This relation of both love and hate, antagonism and connivance is inscribable in a wider debate between a trend of science to intervene in fields that are traditionally prerogative of political, religious or ethical choices, and, on the other side, the position of those who aim at stemming "technocracy" and governing these processes. I argue that multiplication, personalization and consumption are the characteristics of the relationship between science, technology and society in the age of "multiculturalism" and "multi-scientism". This makes more difficult but intriguing the study and understanding of the processes through which scientific knowledge is socialized. Science topics, like biotech, climate change, etc. are today an unavoidable reference frame. It is not possible to not know them and to attach them to the most disparate questions. Like in the case of Moscovici's "Freud for all seasons", the fact itself that the members of a group or a society believe in science as a reference point for others, roots its social representation and the belief that it can solve everyday life problems.

The dialogical dance: self, identity construction, positioning and embodiment in tango dancers.

Argentine tango is a complex phenomenon, involving music, dancing and lifestyle, today practiced by hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. This is already a good reason for psychology to make it an object of study. Besides, studying tango could also help to develop a dialogical way of theorizing and a dialogical methodology, taking into account both the genetic historical and eso-systemic dimensions and the individual experiencing. As any other product of human psyche, tango creates an universal and abstract representation of life starting from very situated and individual acts. Such institutionalized representation, which is at the same time epistemological, ethical and aesthetical, becomes a tradition -that is the framework distanced from the individual immediate experience- within which the meaning of the experiences to be make sense in return. To illustrate this epistemological and methodological stance, a history of the development of tango as dialogical social object first is sketched. Then, an ethnographic study about the Self actuation in a community of Italian tango dancers is presented. Results show how participants construct and actuate their identities in a dialogue between their I-positions inside and outside tango community.

What do you mean by "teacher"?psychological research on teacher professional identity / O que você entende por "professor"?pesquisa psicológica sobre identidade profissional do docente

Teacher Professional Identity is today an autonomous theoretical construct. The paper explores the dimensions of TPI stressed in psychological and educational research, presenting different answers provided to questions such as: Which dimensions have been taken into account to define what a teacher is? The image of teachers actually emerging from literature analysis points out vectors of tension between "mainstream" Social Representations of teacher and everyday experience; between different perceptions of TPI; between established practices and innovation in teaching; between technical rationalist assumptions and lived experience of teachers' job, involving ethical and emotional nature of teaching; and, definitely, between "reality-as-it-is" and "reality-to-be" in teaching. These questions are closely connected to the wider social debate on the future of education. Asking what a teacher is also implies questions about what a "good" teacher is, what should be and, consequently, what are the role and the Social Representations of teachers in society.

O artigo explora as dimensões da Identidade Profissional do Professor na investigação psicológica e educacional e apresentar diferentes respostas para perguntas como: que dimensões foram tidas em conta na definição de professor? A imagem do professor emergente dos estudos evidencia vetores de tensão entre: a) as Representações Sociais de professores e a experiência cotidiana; b) diferentes percepções sobre a Identidade Profissional de Professores; c) as práticas estabelecidas e a inovação no ensino; d) entre os pressupostos técnicos racionalistas e as vivências dos professores, envolvendo a natureza ética e emocional do ensino; e) a "realidade-tal-como-ela-é" e "realidade-a-ser" no ensino. Estas questões estão intimamente ligadas ao debate social alargado sobre o futuro da educação e também implica questões sobre o que é um "bom" professor é, o que um professor deveria ser e, consequentemente, quais são o papel e as representações sociais dos professores na sociedade.

Social representations, individual and collective mind: a study of Wundt, Cattaneo and Moscovici.

The paper presents a discussion on the role of Social Representations in the articulation between individual and collective dimensions of mental activity. An analysis of some concepts in the works of Wundt and Cattaneo is the starting point for a discussion of the relationship between individual processes, practices, artifacts, symbolic systems and functions of Social Representations in the development of culture and individuals. In this perspective, Social Representations could be considered a space of negotiation of the meaning. The relationship between Social Representations, symbolic systems, practices and sense making involves the elaboration of the tension between continuity and innovation, which is developed through communication and practice along time in the interaction between individual and collective minds.

The "fascist" discourse in computer mediated communication: the "dual strategy" model of the Italian Extreme Right

The study is about the identity construction of Italian Extreme Right groups in different Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) environments. Rhetoric Psychology and Critical Discourse Analysis joint approaches are used to analyse two websites and two newsgroups of extreme right. The results confirm Billig's hypothesis that such groups play a dual communication strategy in Computer Mediated Communication, addressing in different ways to the outgroup and the ingroup. This communication strategy has two different functions. In self-presentation towards the outgroup, the emerging group identity fulfils the search for a wider social legitimation, consensus and recruiting. In the ingroup communication, the emerging identity construction answers to the need for preservation of group cohesion and positive self-image.(AU)

Este estudo é sobre a construção da identidade dos grupos Italianos de Extrema Direita em diferentes ambientes de Comunicação Mediada por Computador (CMC). As duas abordagens, Psicologia Retórica e Análise Crítica do Discurso são usadas para analisar dois websites e dois grupos de notícias de extrema direita. Os resultados confirmam a hipótese de Billig de que tais grupos desempenham um duplo papel na estratégia de comunicação na Comunicação Mediada por Computador, dirigindo-se de diferentes maneiras ao grupo externo e ao interno. Esta estratégia de comunicação tem duas funções distintas. Na auto-apresentação feita em direção ao grupo externo, a identidade emergente do grupo satisfaz a busca para uma legitimação social, consenso e recrutamento mais amplos. Na comunicação com o grupo interno, a construção da identidade emergente responde a necessidade de preservação da coesão do grupo e de uma auto-imagem positiva.(AU)

The "fascist" discourse in computer mediated communication: the "dual strategy" model of the Italian Extreme Right / O discurso "fascista" na comunicação mediada por computador: o modelo de "estratégia dupla" da Extrema Direita Italiana

The study is about the identity construction of Italian Extreme Right groups in different Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) environments. Rhetoric Psychology and Critical Discourse Analysis joint approaches are used to analyse two websites and two newsgroups of extreme right. The results confirm Billig's hypothesis that such groups play a dual communication strategy in Computer Mediated Communication, addressing in different ways to the outgroup and the ingroup. This communication strategy has two different functions. In self-presentation towards the outgroup, the emerging group identity fulfils the search for a wider social legitimation, consensus and recruiting. In the ingroup communication, the emerging identity construction answers to the need for preservation of group cohesion and positive self-image.

Este estudo é sobre a construção da identidade dos grupos Italianos de Extrema Direita em diferentes ambientes de Comunicação Mediada por Computador (CMC). As duas abordagens, Psicologia Retórica e Análise Crítica do Discurso são usadas para analisar dois websites e dois grupos de notícias de extrema direita. Os resultados confirmam a hipótese de Billig de que tais grupos desempenham um duplo papel na estratégia de comunicação na Comunicação Mediada por Computador, dirigindo-se de diferentes maneiras ao grupo externo e ao interno. Esta estratégia de comunicação tem duas funções distintas. Na auto-apresentação feita em direção ao grupo externo, a identidade emergente do grupo satisfaz a busca para uma legitimação social, consenso e recrutamento mais amplos. Na comunicação com o grupo interno, a construção da identidade emergente responde a necessidade de preservação da coesão do grupo e de uma auto-imagem positiva.