Manifesto for a cultural psychology
Cor Baerveldt (1996)

Although in Nijmegen cultural psychology has a history that goes back to the late fifties, only recently cultural psychology emerged as a commonly acknowledged field of scientific research. Crucial has been the growing insight, especially since the early eighties, that individual development and identity are both constituted by and constitutive for cultural mores and practices. Already anthropologists and cross-cultural psychologists had extensively demonstrated that patterns of human feeling, thinking and acting show considerable variation across cultures. Although cultural psychology acknowledges the insights of the other social sciences, it puts itself to the task of explaining how cultural patterns 'penetrate', as it were, into the experiential world of individuals, in a way that makes them maintain those very same patterns in their own behavior. The fundamental paradox that comprises the key problem of cultural psychology is, that especially when people are most authentically themselves, we can observe their behavior to be socially patterned.

Cultural psychology tries to look across the traditional borders that separate the various social sciences. This means that, to a large extend, a new language has to be invented that goes beyond the jargon of specific disciplines. Cultural psychology shares most of its concerns with schools and (sub)disciplines like social constructionism, discursive psychology, Bourdieuian sociology and the Russian culture historical school of Vygotsky. Although up till now there exists no generally approved research program for cultural psychology, a few concerns can be mentioned that go beyond individual programs:

1. Cultural psychology is critical with respect to psychology's one-sided, "self contained" individualism. The dominant Western concept of the self, that forms the basis for most psychological thinking, is exposed to be a rather local affair against the background of the worldwide variety of "indigenous psychologies". Especially psychology's claim that it explores and discovers universal principles of psychological functioning is challenged. Psychological processes are considered to be inextricably bound up with local practices and conventions.
2. Cultural psychology tries to break through traditional epistemological boundaries that divide the person from his or her life-world, mind from body and mental states from human action. It can be viewed as an attempt to provide a theory of meaningful action that takes into account that meaning is both socially constituted and at the same time embodied in concrete, human activity. Consensually coordinated actions, for example, produce dispositions to think, feel and act in such a way that existing relations of power and influence are reproduced. Cultural psychology therefore, tries to understand the influence of class, sex and ethnicity in the psychological domain.
3. Cultural psychology favors research methods that are "ecologically valid": Central is the investigation of meaning as it is constructed, negotiated, sustained and disputed in everyday social interactions. Its methods include those which traditionally fall outside the repertoire of psychological research, like the ethnographic interview, or participant observation. In its research, cultural psychology tries to systematically account for patterns of human experience and interaction. To that end the NCPG is developing new research tools by means of which culturally framed meaning-giving activities of individuals can be approached.

The NCPG studies the patterning of behavior as it takes place in a variety of domains. Domains that have our special attentions are youth culture, male-female relationships, sexual behavior, the construction of a philosophy of life, and the contemporary development of new religious forms and ways of giving sense to one's personal life. The research projects of the individual members of the NCPG give a fair impression of what our present concerns are.

Last updated: August 2000
Maintained by Cor Baerveldt