Description
Book SynopsisSynthesizing theoretical contributions by Vygotsky, Bakhtin and Bourdieu, Holland and her co-authors examine the processes by which people are constituted as agents as well as subjects of culturally constructed, socially imposed worlds. They develop a theory of self-formation in which identities become the pivot between discipline and agency.
Trade ReviewThis book brings a breath of fresh air into the otherwise unimaginative social discourse on 'social identity' that reigns in anthropology and psychology in our time. The perspective outlined in the book is a practice theory; practice conceived not merely as what human beings do, but also what they
imagine in conjunction with doing. The authors restore the centrality of personal positioning in the contruction of cultural worlds, and bring anthropologists and psychologists together after their long intellectual separation. -- Jaan Valsiner, Clark University
Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds is a work of keen intelligence and originality, carefully and clearly written. The authors make an impressive argument about the way in which agency and structure are tangled up in each other, and provide a specific guide to sorting out their various skeins. An essential book for contemporary anthropological theory. -- Tanya Luhrmann, University of California, San Diego
Inventive and interdisciplinary...an excellent volume that deserves a wide readership and will be of considerable interest to a number of psychology's researchers, theorists, practitioners, students, and subdisciplines. -- Mark A. Adams * Contemporary Psychology *
(A) clear and informative account of how people reshape their sense of self, negotiate their cultural or "figured" world, and rebel against social norms The ethnographic examples include the efforts of undergraduate women to navigate the world of romance; the contested plights of women, especially lower-caste women in Nepal; creating an Alcoholics Anonymous identity by telling the right sort of narrative about one's life; the struggles to survive of persons suffering from mental disorders...Recommended at all levels. -- J.R. Bowen * Choice *
Table of ContentsPreface I. On the Shoulders of Bakhtin and Vygotsky 1. The Woman Who Climbed Up the House 2. A Practice Theory of Self and Identity II. Placing Identity and Agency 3. Figured Worlds 4. Personal Stories in Alcoholics Anonymous 5. How Figured Worlds of Romance Become Desire III. Power and Privilege 6. Positional Identities 7. The Sexual Auction Block IV. The Space of Authoring 8. Authoring Selves 9. Mental Disorder, Identity, and Professional Discourse 10. Authoring Oneself as a Woman in Nepal V. Making Worlds 11. Play Worlds, Liberatory Worlds, and Fantasy Resources 12. Making Alternate Worlds in Nepal 13. Identity in Practice Notes References Credits Index
