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Research
and Publications
Dr.
P. Voestermans voestermans@cultpsy.org
Projects:
- Statements
and stories: towards a new methodology of attitude research
Following the line of research in the key publication of Gerben
Westerhoff, which bears the same title as the project, research
is carried on into the cultural framing and social underpinnings
of attitudes and non-attitudes, which allegedly govern individual
behavior. The focus of this project is on the question to what
extend and on what domains people possess well-integrated and
well-formed structures of belief. The main issue of the project
is the constitution of belief on domains of personal concern and
on domains that should, but actually do not concern people, even
though individuals are approached as if they have consistent and
central concerns. Much attitudinal research in psychology proceeds
as if no such social and cultural framing of attitude structures
exists. The project tries to counteract this tendency.
- The
history of differential psychology
The history of the tension between racial and cultural views on
intelligence. Its bearing on the psychological practice of testing
and mental measurement. This is a historiographic project in which
we try to trace down the main constituents of the debates from
the early nineteen hundreds up till the present on the impact
of cognitive ability on problem behavior in the community.
- The
vicissitudes of the concept of culture in psychology: 1850-1980
In this historiographic project, which is part of a larger project
on the development of the culture concept in social science, we
try to figure out whether and why there has been so much resistance
in adopting a cultural perspective on individual behavior, even
though the concept of culture has been a steady alternative throughout
the 19th and 20st century to racial and biological interpretations
of individual and group differences.
- The
cultural underpinnings of courtship behavior
This project tries to sort out the various sources of persistent
male and female patterns in courtship behavior. In this study
various methodologies such as participant observation and the
interviewing of experts, which try to capture personal experience,
are developed and used.
Publications:
Voestermans,
P. (1991). Alterity/Identity: a deficient image of culture. In R.
Corbey, & J.Th Leerssen (Eds.), Alterity, identity, image: selves
and others in society and scholarship . Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi.
Voestermans,
P. (1992). Psychological practice as a cultural phenomenon. New
Ideas in Psychology, 10, 331-346.
Psychological
practice is the dimension of psychology that has had a strong
influence on the modernization of practices in the field of mental
health, education, family life, and so on. As a practical science
psychology is quite vulnerable to ideological influences. To clarify
the received view of psychology's ideological impact, a distinction
is made between a negative and a positive concept of ideology.
In order to meet some of the objections against the received view
it is proposed to subsume the positive concept under the concept
of culture, which stresses non-propositional and non-argumentative
aspects of behavior-organization. From this perspective much of
psychology, particularly its practical side, has become an integral
part of our culture and, therefore, cannot be ideologically criticized
anymore. Its impact can only be studied within the framework of
culture theory. The advantages of a culture theory approach are
detailed and a few interesting issues of further research are
presented. Finally, its is pointed out that a culture theory approach
has historiographic consequences. Two sketchy examples are given
of how to proceed with writing a history of psychological practice
within the framework of culture theory.
Voestermans,
P. P. L. A. (1992). A culture theory approach to the historiography
of psychology. In H. Carpentero, E. Lafuente, R. Plas, & L. Sprung
(Eds.), New studies in the history of psychology and the social
sciences (pp. 361-374). Valencia: Revista de Historia de la
Psychologia Monographs.
Voestermans,
P. P. L. A. (1992). Cultuurpsychologie: van cultuur in de psychologie
naar psychologie in 'cultuur' [Cultural psychology: from culture
in psychology to psychology in 'culture']. Nederlands Tijdschrift
voor de Psychologie en haar Grensgebieden, 47, 151-162.
Voestermans,
P. P. L. A. (1992). Emoties onder kennis bedolven? [Emotions buried
by cognition?]. Psychologie en Maatschappij, 16(4),
466-469.
Voestermans,
P. P. L. A. (1994). Het verdeelde lichaam. Over het lichaam en dingen
die niet meer voorbijgaan. In J. Goedegebuure (Red.), Het verdeelde
lichaam. Ervaring en verbeelding van lichamelijkheid in een gefragmenteerde
cultuur (pp. 10-33). Baarn: Gooi en Sticht.
Voestermans,
P. (1995). Cultural psychology of the body. In I. Lubek, R. van
Hezewijk, G. Peterson, & C. W. Tolman (Eds.), Trends and Issues
in theoretical psychology. New York: Springer.
This
chapter presents a cultural psychological view of the body as
a seperate source of meaning. Cognition as embodied understanding
is not recovery or projection, but embodied action. Embodied refers
not to the body's micro-functional organization but to macro-operational
features. Nietzsche, Wittgenstein and Merleau-Ponty are discussed,
in elaborating crucial macro-operational features providing the
body with its own logic of practice --a logic which is cultural.
Bourdieu's habitus theory is linked to cultural psychological
insight about the affective structuring of behavior through culturally
informed bodily skills. Further research consequences are discussed.
Voestermans,
P. (1996). Lets take corporeality seriously. Review of Chris Shilling,
Body and Social Theory. Theory & Psychology, 6.
Voestermans,
P. P. L. A. (1996). [Bespreking van B. Gomes de Mesquita (1993).
Cultural variations in emotion. A comparative study of Dutch, Surinamese
and Turkish people in the Netherlands. Proefschrift Universiteit
van Amsterdam.] Migrantenstudies, 12(1), 48-49.
Voestermans,
P. (1997). Cultural psychology looks at culture. Paper presented
at the 7th
conference of the International Society for Theoretical Psychology
(ISTP), 27 April - 2 May 1997, Berlin.
Voestermans,
P. (1997). De vreemde: Exotische volkeren en cultuurpsychologie.
In J. Jansz & P. van Drunen (Eds.), Met zachte hand. Opkomst
en verbreiding van het psychologisch perspectief (pp. 205-222).
Utrecht: Elsevier/de Tijdstroom.
Voestermans,
P. (1997). Een mislukte enscenering. Psychologie & Maatschappij,
21, 347-352.
Voestermans,
P. P. L. A. (1997). Oefeningen in wellevendheid. Voorlopig, Commentaar
bij maatschappij en kerk, HN-Magazine, 53 (16), 2-5.
Voestermans,
P. P. L. A. (1999). Gepaste gevoelens. [Bespreking van M. F. Baanders
(1997). The rules of the game. Emotion norms in daily life.] De
Psycholoog, 34, 161-162.
Voestermans,
P. (1999). Cultural psychology looks at culture. In W. Maiers,
B. Bayer, B. Duarte Esgalhado, R. Jorna & E. Schraube (Eds.), Challenges
to Theoretical Psychology. North York, Canada: Captus.
Voestermans,
P. (1998). Wat voor de baat uit gaat: Naar een psychologie van de
ervaring. In R. Van Uden & J. Pieper (Red.), Wat baat religie?
(pp. 159-181). Nijmegen: KSGV.
Voestermans,
P. (1998). De terreur van de eindigheid. Naar een comparatief perspectief
op zingevingspraktijken. In J. Janssen, R. van Uden, & H. van
der Ven (Red.), Schering en Inslag. Opstellen over religie in
de hedendaagse cultuur (pp. 238-252). Nijmegen: KSGV.
Voestermans,
P., & Baerveldt, C. (1999). Cultural psychology meets evolutionary
psychology. Paper presented at the 8th conference of the International
Society for Theoretical Psychology (ISTP), April 25-28, 2000, Sydney.
Voestermans,
P., & Baerveldt, C. (in press). Cultural psychology meets evolutionary
psychology. In B. Bayer, R. Jorna, & J. Morss (Eds.), Challenges
to theoretical psychology. Ontario: Captus.
Voestermans,
P., & Baerveldt, C. (2000). The need to approach culture
psychologically: Arguments from history and evolutionary biology.
Paper presented at the 1st International Conference on the Dialogical
Self, June 23 - 26, 2000, Nijmegen (NL).
In
psychology the approach of the self by elaborating the dialogical
nature of human interaction is getting momentum from all sides
in the field. In cultural psychology the dialogical nature of
human interaction has led to the position that cultural processes
should not to be cut loose from its basis in interactive practices.
To that end enactivism has been proposed as a viable psychological
approach to culture. In this paper I want to elaborate on the
consequences of 'dialogicity' and enactivism for our understanding
of culture I will focus on two things. First of all, there are
good historical arguments to criticize the received view of culture
as context or as a ready-made symbolic system, which serves as
an already existing frame of human behavior. Secondly, in line
with some developments in neuropsychology and evolutionary biology,
the argument is put forward that a fruitful cooperation between
biologist and (cultural) psychologists calls for the articulation
of the dialogical dimension in the construction of circuits in
the brain in order to understand better the instrument of the
production of culture. The brain is dependent for its proper function
and development on how people coordinate their actions with respect
to the environment including other people. In biology and neurology
the insight breaks through that in the course of human evolution,
people acting together provided the basis for self-consciousness.
The integration of the brain sciences into a cultural psychology
aiming at a psychological understanding of culture calls for a
dialogical perspective on the production of culture. In the final
section, I will argue for an approach to culture in which its
conception in terms of a monolithic system is de-emphasized and
instead features are stressed which allow for a more dynamic view
of its co-construction in human interaction. Some practical consequences
are drawn as well. In addition, the consequences are drawn of
the synergy between biological and psychological approaches of
culture. It puts a halt to the misdirected view that culture is
mere context impinging on behavioral and ideational structures.
Such a rather dualistic view is scientifically flawed.
Voestermans,
P. (2000). Cultuurpsychologie en evolutiepsychologie: Op weg naar
een bruikbare integratie van evolutiebiologie in de psychologie.[Cultural
psychology and evolutionary psychology: Toward a useful integration
of evolutionary biology in psychology]. Psychologie & Maatschappij,
91.
In this paper
it is argued that evolutionary psychology will be able to deal
with culture rather fruitfully only if it abandons its rather
narrow view of causality and broadens its description of the animal
side of the species Homo. Furthermore, evolutionary psychology
has to acknowledge the fact that the evolutionary process can
not be described as a single-brain affair. Rather, for the development
of a flourishing cooperation with the culture theory approach
in the behavioral sciences, it is mandatory to proceed on the
assumption that brains exist in the plural and as such are part
of part of embodied behavioral systems which coordinate their
activities with other embodied systems.
Voestermans,
P., & Baerveldt, C. (2000). How Völkerpsychologie went
astray: The birth of the inimical relation between biology and culture
theory. Paper presented at the 19th annual conference of the
European Society fot the History of the Human Sciences (ESHHS),
August 25-29, 2000, Berlin.
The
history of psychology's dealing with culture is not always treated
with proper nuance for the national context in which theoretical
exercises around the culture concept were carried out. Each nation
- France, England and Germany - had their own reasons for devising
their particular brand of the civilizing offensive. We hope to
show that the German educational approach to culture that started
with the introduction of the notion of 'Volksgeist', resulted
in a new type of psychology. This German aspect of the civilizing
offensive of the Western world should be set apart from other,
psychologically equally interesting ways to deal with the psyche
of the natives (or the "savages" as they were called
then), which were carried out by the French and the English students
of culture. The vicissitudes of this new brand of psychology still
need to be charted historically. Particularly interesting is the
way in which Völkerpsychologie was used to counterbalance
the naturalistic, overly biological approach to the human mind.
This operation wasn't successful, however, as we hope to document,
but it branded the way the culture concept and culture theory
were devised from the late eighteen-hundreds onward up till the
late 20th century. All we got from it was an entire century of
culture theory without much avail. In hindsight, one might say
that the Standard Social Science Model of culture, which till
today rightfully meets much resistance in evolutionary circles,
was the result of this historical exercise.
Baerveldt, C.,
& Voestermans, P. (1996). The Body as a Selfing Device: the case
of anorexia nervosa. Theory & Psychology, 6, 695-715. click here
to see the abstract.
Baerveldt, C.,
& Voestermans, P. (1998). The body as a selfing device: The case
of anorexia nervosa. In H. Stam (Ed.), Psychology and the body.
London: Sage.
Baerveldt, C.
& Voestermans, P. (1999). Culture and the dialogical form of
meaning. Paper presented at the 8th conference of the International
Society for Theoretical Psychology (ISTP), April 25-28, 2000, Sydney.
Baerveldt, C.,
& Voestermans, P. (2000). Het misverstand cultuur: naar een
psychologie van biculturaliteit [The misconception of culture: Towards
a psychology of biculturality. Nederlands Tijdschrift voor de
Psychologie, 55, 109-120.
Baerveldt, C.,
Voestermans, P., & Verheggen, Th. (1999). Human experience and
the enigma of culture: Towards an enactive account of cultural practice.
Paper presented at the 8th conference of the International Society
for Theoretical Psychology (ISTP), April 25-28, 2000, Sydney.
Baerveldt, J.
C., Voestermans, P., & Verheggen, Th. (in press). Human experience
and the enigma of culture: Towards an enactive account of cultural
practice. In B. Bayer, R. Jorna, & J. Morss (Eds.), Challenges to
theoretical psychology. Ontario: Captus.
Friesen, G.,
& Voestermans, P. (1995). De Bell Curve hype [The Bell Curve
hype]. De Psycholoog, 30(11), 467-470.
Westerhof, G.,
& Voestermans, P. (1995). Het belang van het spreken: De economie
van taalhandelingen in het werk van Pierre Bourdieu. Psychologie
& Maatschappij, 19, 142-154.
Leineweber,
M. J., Voestermans, P., & Baerveldt, C. (2000). Suicide within
a society in transition. Paper presented at the 11th International
Congress on Circumpolar Health in Harstad, Norway, June 4-June 9.
The
aim of the paper is to present an overview of suicide rates in
Greenland in the period 1972-1995 and demographic characteristics
of the persons committing suicide. Epidemiological data on suicides
were obtained from a computerized register on causes of death
and were used to update previous reports. Extremely high suicide
rates were found in Greenland, with a sharp increase in suicide
rates in the period 1975-1989. From 1990 rates have declined.
Though it is too early to speak of a continuous downward trend,
it appears that suicide rates have stabilized; however they remained
extremely high (around 100 per 100,000). In particular among young
males (15-24 years), suicide rates were very high, with a recent
concentration among the young aged 15-19. Both, sociological and
individual psychological explanations are discussed, in relationship
to the progress of the modernization of Greenland. Special attention
is called for the regional variation of suicide rates.
Leineweber,
M. J., Voestermans, P., & Baerveldt, C. (submitted). Suicide
within a society in transition. Submitted for publication in the
International Journal of Circumpolar Health.
Leineweber,
M., Baerveldt, C., & Voestermans, P. (2001). Suicide bij de
Inuitjongeren in Groenland [Suicide among the Inuit youth in Greenland].
Psychologie en Maatschappij, 94, 2-14.
In
de afgelopen decennia vond in Groenland een forse stijging plaats
van het aantal zelfdodingen. Op dit moment behoort het suïcidecijfer
in Groenland tot de hoogste ter wereld. Met name onder jonge Inuitmannen
in de leeftijd van 15 tot 25 jaar is het aantal suïcides
extreem hoog. De stijging wordt vaak in verband gebracht met de
overgang van een traditionele naar een moderne samenlevingsvorm.
In dit artikel worden de recente trends in het suïcidecijfer
beschreven en wordt er ingegaan op de omstandigheden en achtergronden
van suïcides. Vooral het ontbreken van stabiele sociale netwerken
en de aanwezigheid van verstoorde en conflictueuze relaties blijken
typerend te zijn voor het patroon van suïcides onder de Groenlandse
jongeren. Tegen de achtergrond van de empirische beschrijvingen
wordt een kritische uiteenzetting gegeven van eerder ontwikkelde
verklaringsmodellen. Er wordt gepleit voor een meer dynamische
cultuurpsychologische benadering van de Groenlandse suïcideproblematiek.
Om de hoge zelfmoordcijfers te kunnen begrijpen zal men zich moeten
richten op de dagelijkse praktijken en directe relaties en interacties
van de jongeren. In de toekomst zal daarom meer kwalitatief onderzoek
nodig zijn.
Merwe, W.L.
van der, & Voestermans, P.P.L.A. (1995). Wittgenstein's legacy and
the challenge to psychology. Theory & Psychology, 5,
27-48.
The
present resurgence of interest in Ludwig Wittgenstein is related
to the growing concern in the philosophy and methodology of the
behavioral sciences with the role played by conceptual frameworks,
models and metaphors in the mediation of our experience of the
world. It is also related to Wittgenstein's notion of 'forms of
life' as a new focus of empirical research. In the first part
of this article we distinguish between an explain Wittgenstein's
initial understanding of language as the symbolic representation
of sensory experience and his eventual understanding of the dialectic
of language-games and forms of life. In the second part, the cue
of his linking of language to experiential forms of life, even
to what can be called the 'body-subject' in Merleau-Ponty's terminology,
will be taken up and further improvised in order to show the challenge
with which Wittgenstein's legacy confronts present-day psychology.
In this science one has to come to grips with meaning-giving (and
-taking, for that matter) as an experiential affair. This task
requires an analysis of peoples culturally informed body, their
bodily structured sentiments and the use of language confined
to these bodily and affective structures, and of the way these
structures are framed by people's forms of life, in order to fully
understand what presses people to experience the world in this
and not the other way.
Dr.
C. Baerveldt baerveldt@cultpsy.org
Projects:
- Ph.d.Project:
The role of nature in New Age religiosity
New Age is often considered as a prototypical example of privatised
religion. Nevertheless, a few themes are very characteristic of
New Age in general. In particular, New Age represents a typical
present-day authenticity discourse. On the one hand, personal
feelings and subjective experience are emphasized. On the other
hand, however, New Age participants have a great confidence in
what is considered to be the 'natural' order of things. The notion
of 'naturalness' seems to be deployed in order to provide personal
feelings with an aura of realness. In our research we analyzed
talk of nature and naturalness as a particular kind of authenticity
discourse that is aimed at acquiring acknowledgement for one's
personal feelings, rather than at making out a case for a particular
version of reality (Baerveldt, 1998; Baerveldt, van Lankveld,
& Voestermans, in progress; van Lankveld & Baerveldt,
1998)
Grant: NWO/SFT. Finished
- Post-doc
Project: Normative discourse in Dutch multicultural society
This project is concerned with everyday normative discourse in
Dutch multicultural neighborhoods. The project is part of the
program "Structural integration, patterns of parenting, identity
development and cultural orientation in indigenous and non-indigenous
Dutch citizens". The central question in this project concerns
the relation between different styles of enculturation and different
styles of normative reasoning. This research project builds on
the psychological approach to culture that is being developed
at the Nijmegen Cultural Psychology Group. Instead of looking
upon culture as a rather monolithic entity, we try to develop
an enactive view on culture, by focusing on the dynamical patterns
that arise as a consequence of an ongoing consensual coordination
of actions between experiencing persons (Baerveldt, 1999; Baerveldt
& Voestermans, 1999; Baerveldt, Voestermans & Verheggen, 1999).
Such a dynamical view on culture implies that enculturation processes
can no longer be considered as a simply a matter of appropriating
the "norms" and "values" of a society. Instead,
we focus on cultural skills and competences, that is, on people's
ability to successfully coordinate their actions with respect
to other people. In our current research we are particularly interested
in normative issues that are connected to sentiments of honor
and shame among Turkish and Maroccan immigrants in the Netherlands
(Baerveldt & Voestermans, 2000).
- The
epistemological foundations of cultural psychology
Although already the founding fathers of psychology have been
concerned with culture, in practice there has always been a division
of the estate between psychology and the 'real' social sciences
(anthropology and sociology). We claim, however, that an adequate
understanding of cultural patterns asks for a psychological approach
to culture itself. Although it may seem a commonplace that human
action is cultural patterned, we maintain that 'culture' should
not be reified as an explanation of patterned conduct, since culture
has itself to be psychologically understood. After all, cultural
norms, values, stories and theories are real, because people experience
them as such. The question is, however, what kind of psychology
is suitable for the task of understanding culturally patterned
conduct. In order to meet this challenge we have tried to develop
the outlines of an enactive cultural psychology (Baerveldt,
1998; Baerveldt & van Grinsven, 2000; Baerveldt & Verheggen,
1999a, 1999b; Baerveldt & Voestermans, 1999; Baerveldt, Voestermans,
& Verheggen, 1999). Such an enactive cultural psychology focusses
on the ongoing consensual coordination of actions within
communities of experiencers, instead of already established
cultural entities.
- The
body as a selfing device.
In challenging psychology's over-physiologization of the body,
social constructionism emphasizes the body as a cluster of discursively
constructed meanings. However, social constructionism tends to
pass over in silence the body as producer of meaning in its own
right. Viewing the body as a natural juncture of 'co-regulative
skills' places the body in the centre of a theory of the selfing
process (Baerveldt & Voestermans, 1996, 1998).
Publications:
Baerveldt, C.
(1995). New Age religiositeit als individueel constructieproces.
[New Age religiosity as individual construction process]. In M.
Moerland (Ed.), De kool en de geit in de nieuwe tijd: Wetenschappelijke
reflecties op New Age. Utrecht: Van Arkel.
Baerveldt, C.
(1997). Cultural psychology as the study of meaning. Invited
address at the symposium "Unidades de Análisis en la
Psigología Cultural" at the XVII "Coloquio de Investigación",
14-17 October, 1997, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México,
Escuela Nacional de Estudios Profesionales Iztacala, Mexico City.
Baerveldt, C.
(1998). Culture and the consensual coordination of actions.
Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Nijmegen.
Baerveldt, C.
(1999). La psicología cultural como el estudio del significado:
Algunas consideraciones epistemológicas. Psicología
y Ciencia Social, 3(1), 3-14.
Cultural
psychology tries to understand how meaningful human actions can
at the same time be culturally patterned and rooted within personal
experience. Psychologically speaking, any account of patterned
meaning solely in terms of pre-established cultural meaning systems
falls short. In this article both cognitivist and discursive approaches
to meaning are criticized for taking for granted the culturally
constituted meanings for which they should actually account. It
is argued that an adequate theory of meaning should explain how
experience becomes socially patterned in the first place. As an
alternative epistemological foundation for a cultural psychology,
we turn to an enactive approach, as based on the work of Humberto
Maturana and Francisco Varela. Enactivism considers human cognition
to be rooted within the experience of embodied social agents or
persons. Social and cultural phenomena are then supposed to emerge
as a consequence of a consensual coordination of actions between
embodied persons.
Baerveldt,
C., & van Grinsven, H. (2000). Toward a dialogical understanding
of cultural patterns. Paper presented at the 1st
International Conference on the Dialogical Self, June 23 - 26,
2000, Nijmegen (NL).
Although
psychology has a more than a century old occupation with culture,
it has often tended towards a conceptualization of culture as
an objective reality that somehow determines human action from
the outside. Following, what we have elsewhere called an 'enactive'
line of reasoning (Baerveldt & Verheggen, 1999), we will argue
that 'culture' in this sense can never be an adequate explanation
of patterned conduct, since it is itself something to be psychologically
explained. The question can be asked, however, what kind of psychology
will be suitable for the task of understanding culturally patterned
human action. Indeed, it has become sufficiently clear that any
psychology that starts from the notion of a 'homo clausus' falls
hopelessly short in this respect. In this paper we will make out
a case for an 'intrinsically social' or 'dialogical' psychology
that considers all human action to be consensually coordinated.
We claim that the fundamental question of such a dialogical psychology
should not be how people internalize ready made cultural meanings,
but how 'personal' sense becomes coordinated in such a way that
it gives rise to cultural meanings. Crucial for an understanding
of dialogue is the realization that it takes place between actors
who recognize or acknowledge each other as having different experiences
about a 'common' reality. We consider dialogue to be a way in
which interlocutors mutually orient themselves within a consensual
domain that is the product of their own interactions. Since this
is essentially a social, or relational affair, we will argue that
a dialogical psychology should be careful not to confine this
dialogue within the interior of a self contained individual again.
Baerveldt, C.,
van Lankveld, Th., & Voestermans, P. (in progress). Nature
talk as authenticity discourse.
Baerveldt, C.
& Verheggen, Th. (1997). Towards
a psychological study of culture: Epistemological considerations.
Paper presented at the 7th
conference of the International Society for Theoretical Psychology
(ISTP), 27 April - 2 May 1997, Berlin.
Baerveldt,
C., & Verheggen, Th. (1999). Enactivism and the experiential reality
of culture: Rethinking the epistemological basis of cultural psychology.
Culture & Psychology, 5, 183-206.
The
key problem of cultural psychology comprises a paradox: While
people believe to act on the basis of their own authentic experience,
cultural psychologists observe their behavior to be socially patterned.
It is argued that, in order to account for those patterns, cultural
psychology should take human experience as its analytical starting
point. Nevertheless, there is a tendency within cultural psychology
to either neglect human experience, by focusing exclusively on
discourse, or to consider the structure of this experience to
originate in an already produced cultural order. For an alternative
approach, we turn to the enactive view of cognition developed
by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela. Their theory of autonomy
can provide the epistemological basis for a cultural psychology
that explains how experience can become socially patterned in
the first place. Cultural life forms are then considered as consensually
coordinated, embodied practices.
Key Words: Cultural psychology, enactivism, epistemology,
experiential reality, embodiment
Baerveldt, C.
& Verheggen, Th. (1999). Towards a psychological study of culture:
Epistemological considerations. In W. Maiers, B. Bayer, B. Duarte
Esgalhado, R. Jorna & E. Schraube (Eds.), Challenges
to Theoretical Psychology. North York, Canada: Captus.
Baerveldt, C.,
& Verheggen, Th. (In press). Hacia un estudio psicológico
de la cultura. Psicología y Ciencia Social.
Baerveldt,
C., & Voestermans, P. (1996). The body as a selfing device: The
case of anorexia nervosa. Theory & Psychology, 6,
693-713.
Psychology's
conceptualization of anorexia nervosa illustrates very well how
this discipline deals with the body. On the one hand there is
an emphasis on the body as a physiological apparatus. On the other
hand specific approaches such as social constructionism stress
the non-physiological body as something to which certain discursive
meanings get attached. We propose to view the body as a producer
of meaning in its own right, as a 'selfing device'. To this end
we emphasize bodily communication as a continuous flow of co-regulated
interaction. The body presents itself as the natural juncture
of 'co-regulative skills'. The 'selfing process' involves multiple
stylized bodily skills, that testify to people's ability to take
part in the life world. Anorexia is seen as a disturbance of those
skills.
Key Words: anorexia nervosa, bodily skills, co-regulation,
embodiment, social constructionism
Baerveldt, C.,
& Voestermans, P. (1998). The body as a selfing device: The case
of anorexia nervosa. In H. Stam (Ed.), Psychology and the body.
London: Sage.
Baerveldt, C.
& Voestermans, P. (1999). Culture and the dialogical form of
meaning. Paper presented at the 8th conference of the International
Society for Theoretical Psychology (ISTP), April 25-28, 2000, Sydney.
Baerveldt, C.,
& Voestermans, P. (2000). Het misverstand cultuur: naar een
psychologie van biculturaliteit [The misconception of culture: Towards
a psychology of biculturality]. Nederlands Tijdschrift voor de
Psychologie, 55, 109-120.
Psychological
research into the multicultural society suffers from a number
of fundamental misunderstandings concerning culture. These misunderstandings
are rooted in the fact that psychologists continue to derive their
concept of culture from a sociology which still has to free itself
from nineteenth-century notions of culture as 'civilization'.
In addition, researchers commit the epistemological error of treating
culture as a psychological property which is shared by a particular
group. This leads to a monolithic conception of culture which
can offer no insight at all into the way the behavior of people
is regulated in bicultural situations.
This article argues for the psychological study of culture and
biculturality. In this approach, cultural patterns of behavior
are regarded as the dynamic product of constant mutual adaptations,
Instead of a one-sided emphasis on cultural differences, the authors
make the case for a psychology of biculturality which concerns
itself with the skills and competences one has to draw upon in
order to participate succesfully in a multicultural society.
Baerveldt, C.,
Voestermans, P., & Verheggen, Th. (1999). Human experience and
the enigma of culture: Towards an enactive account of cultural practice.
Paper presented at the 8th conference of the International Society
for Theoretical Psychology (ISTP), April 25-28, 2000, Sydney.
Janssen, J.,
Spille, H., & Baerveldt, C. (1996). "Wetten, praktische bezwaren
en weemoedigheid": Een onderzoek naar mobiliteitsverhinderende
factoren onder Duitse en Nederlandse jongeren. ["Laws, practical
difficulties and melancholy": a study of mobility preventing
factors among German and Dutch youth]. In K. Renckstorf, & N. Bergmans
(Eds.), Nederlanders en Duitsers: Perspectieven, vraagstellingen
en eerste empirische bevindingen van het sociaal-wetenschappelijk
onderzoeksprogramma in het kader van "Kultur- und Kulturraumforschung".
Nijmegen: Tandem Felix.
Janssen, J.,
Prins, M., Baerveldt, C. & Van der Lans, J. (1998). Structuur en
varianten van bidden: Een onderzoek bij Nederlandse Jongeren. [Structure
and variety of prayer: A study of Dutch youth]. In R. Van Uden &
J. Pieper (Eds.), Wat baat religie? Nijmegen: KSGV.
Jung, H.P.,
Wensing, M., Mainz, J., Baerveldt, C., Olesen, F., & Grol, R. A
systematic review of literature on patient priorities for general
practice care: Differences between patient subgroups. Submitted
for publication in Social Science & Medicine.
Leineweber,
M. J., Voestermans, P., & Baerveldt, C. (2000). Suicide within
a society in transition. Paper presented at the 11th International
Congress on Circumpolar Health in Harstad, Norway, June 4-June 9.
Click here for the abstract.
Leineweber,
M. J., Voestermans, P., & Baerveldt, C. (submitted). Suicide
within a society in transition. Submitted for publication in the
International Journal of Circumpolar Health.
Leineweber,
M., Baerveldt, C., & Voestermans, P. (2001). Suicide bij de
Inuitjongeren in Groenland [Suicide among the Inuit youth in Greenland].
Psychologie en Maatschappij, 94, 2-14. Click here
for the abstract (Dutch).
Lankveld, Th.
van, & Baerveldt, C. (1998). The rhetorical structure of nature
and its relation to experience. In R. Forrester & C. Percy (Eds.),
Proceedings International Conference on Discourse and the Social
Order, July 1998. Birmingham: Aston Business School.
Verheggen, Th.,
& Baerveldt, C. (1999). From social representations to consensually
coordinated action: Towards an intrinsically social psychology.
Paper presented at the 8th conference of the International Society
for Theoretical Psychology (ISTP), April 25-28, 2000, Sydney.
Verheggen, Th.,
& Baerveldt, C. (in progress). From representations to coordinated
action: Finding a ground for an intrinsically social psychology.
Voestermans,
P., & Baerveldt, C. (1999). Cultural psychology meets evolutionary
psychology. Paper presented at the 8th conference of the International
Society for Theoretical Psychology (ISTP), April 25-28, 2000, Sydney.
Voestermans,
P., & Baerveldt, C. (2000). The need to approach culture
psychologically: arguments from history and evolutionary biology.
Paper presented at the 1st International Conference on the Dialogical
Self, June 23 - 26, 2000, Nijmegen (NL).
Voestermans,
P., & Baerveldt, C. (2000). How Völkerpsychologie went astray:
The birth of the inimical relation between biology and culture theory.
Paper presented at the 19th annual conference of the European
Society fot the History of the Human Sciences (ESHHS), August 25-29,
2000, Berlin.
Drs.
Theo Verheggen verheggen@cultpsy.org
Projects:
- Ph.d.Project:
Rediscovering culture: The importance of the classic culture theories
for contemporary psychology
When the contemporary social sciences were founded, over a hundred
years ago, culture was an important issue. Somehow, however, the
concept of culture disappeared from social theory, until recently.
In this project, we will attempt to reconstruct the culture theories
of two of the most important precursors of contemporary social
science: Wilhelm Wundt and Émile Durkheim. The objective
is to study the relevance of these theories for the current debate
on culture within psychology. Not only with respect to theory,
but also with regard to its practical implications for the study
of morality, religion, and the philosophy of life. Following Mestrovic
(Émile Durkheim and the Reformation of Sociology, 1988;
Durkheim and Postmodern Culture, 1992), it is expected that a
renewed insight in the cultural approach of Wundt, Durkheim, and
other founders of the contemporary social scienctific disciplines
will be a fruitful contribution to the current psychological study
of culture, morality and religion.
Publications:
Verheggen, Th.
(1996). Durkheim's Représentations considered as Vorstellungen.
Current Perspectives in Social Theory, 16, pp. 189-219.
The
French term représentation, as it was used by Émile
Durkheim, and the English term representation are not as similar
as they appear to be. I argue that the gist of représentation
is much better captured when seen against the background of the
German philosophical term Vorstellung. This is in line with Stjepan
Mestrovic's argument that Durkheim was heavily influenced by Arthur
Schopenhauer's philosophy: A point completely missed by other
Durkheim interpreters. Understanding Durkheim against the background
of Schopenhauer's philosophy sheds a very different and promising
light on the former's theory. This idea is explored in detail
for the important Durkheimian concepts of représentations
individuelles, représentations collectives, and for Durkheim's
famous notion of the duality of human nature (homo duplex). The
discussion is related to some influential critiques of Durkheim's
work. Finally, I argue that in the past, little justice has been
rendered to the highly original ideas of Durkheim by failing to
address his German and Jewish intellectual roots.
Theo Verheggen.
(Sept.1996). Early Culture Theory: A
Critique of the Enlightenment Project. Paper Presented at
the 15th Cheiron Europe Conference, Leiden, the Netherlands. (The
URL above leads to a slightly modified version of the paper.)
Verheggen, Th.
(1998). De cultuurpsychologie van
Michael Cole. Bespreking van Michael Cole (1996). Cultural Psychology:
A Once and Future Discipline. Psychologie & Maatschappij,
82.
Verheggen, Th.
(1998). De McRoes-belevenis. Psychologie
& Maatschappij, 84.
Verheggen, Th.(1998).
Van anders naar minder: Bespreking
van Inge Mans (1998). Zin der Zotheid. Vijf eeuwen cultuurgeschiedenis
van zotten, onnozelen en zwakzinnigen. Psychologie & Maatschappij,
85.
Baerveldt, C.
& Verheggen, Th. (1997). Towards
a psychological study of culture: Epistemological considerations.
Paper presented at the 7th conference of the International Society
for Theoretical Psychology (ISTP), 27 April - 2 May 1997, Berlin.
Baerveldt, C.,
& Verheggen, Th. (1999). Enactivism and the experiential reality
of culture: Rethinking the epistemological basis of cultural psychology.
Culture & Psychology, 5, 183-206. Click here
for an abstract.
Baerveldt, C.
& Verheggen, Th. (1999). Towards a psychological study of culture:
Epistemological considerations. W. Maiers, B. Bayer, B. Duarte Esgalhado,
R. Jorna & E. Schraube (Eds.), Challenges to Theoretical Psychology.
North York, Canada: Captus.
Baerveldt, C.,
Voestermans, P., & Verheggen, Th. (1999). Human experience and
the enigma of culture: Towards an enactive account of cultural practice.
Paper presented at the 8th conference of the International Society
for Theoretical Psychology (ISTP), April 25-28, 2000, Sydney.
Verheggen, Th.,
& Baerveldt, C. (1999). From social representations to consensually
coordinated action: Towards an intrinsically social psychology.
Paper presented at the 8th conference of the International Society
for Theoretical Psychology (ISTP), April 25-28, 2000, Sydney.
Verheggen, Th.,
& Baerveldt, C. (in progress). From representations to coordinated
action: Finding a ground for an intrinsically social psychology.
Janssen, J.,
& Verheggen, Th. (1997). The double center of gravity in Durkheim's
symbol theory: Bringing the body back. Sociological Theory,
15(3), pp. 294-306.
Drs.
H.J.G. Kempen
In
memoriam
Projects:
- The
body as source of self-universals with multiple options and objective
culture as a device for countering their combinatorial explosion.
- The
options of self-universals as Heraclitean opposites.
- "For
centuries they treated them like children." Did they? Content
analysis of ego-documents from the Dutch East Indies on (a)symmetrical
relationships. With Femke Sleegers.
- Revisiting
the concept of culture. Developing a view on culture as a multiplicity
of collective voices interacting in a (non)dialogical way. With
Hubert J. M. Hermans.
Publications:
Hermans, H.J.M.,
Kempen, H.J.G., & Van Loon, R.J.P. (1992). The dialogical self:
beyond individualism and rationalism. American Psychologist,
47, 23-33.
There
is a growing awareness that the individualistic and rationalistic
character of contemporary theories of the self reflect an ethnocentric
Western view of personhood. In opposition to this view, it is
argued from a constructionist perspective that the self can be
conceived of as dialogical, a view that transcends both individualism
and rationalism. A comparison of three constructionist forerunners
-Vico, Vaihinger, and Kelly- suggests that to transcend individualism
and rationalism, the embodied nature of the self must be taken
into consideration. Moving through space and time, the self can
imaginatively occupy a number of positions that permit mutual
dialogical relations. The classic Jamesian distinction between
the I and the Me is translated in a multiple authors / multiple
actors framework. The implications for some areas for psychological
research are elaborated on.
Hermans, H.J.M.,
& Kempen, H.J.G. (1993). The dialogical self: Meaning as movement.
San Diego: Academic Press.
In
contrast to traditional, individualistic and rational conceptions
of the self, this book argues that the self functions as a dynamic
multiplicity of I-positions. These positions are modeled here
as located in an imaginal space in which an actor moves back and
forth between different and even opposing positions. This book
integrates divergent themes such as the construction of meaning
as movements in an imaginal space, the genesis of self-knowledge,
the decentralization of the self in contemporary psychology (and
in literary products and literary theory), the never ending interplay
between the voices of the self and the collective voices of society.
Hermans, H.J.M.,
& Kempen, H.J.G. (1998). Moving Cultures. The Perilous Problems
of Cultural Dichotomies in a Globalizing Society. American Psychologist,
53 (10), 1111-1120
The
accelerating process of globalization and the increasing interconnections
between cultures involve an unprecedented challenge to contemporary
psychology. In apparent contrast to these trends, academic mainstream
conceptions continue to work in a tradition of cultural dichotomies
(e.g. individualistic vs. collectivistic, independent vs. interdependent),
refecting a classifactory approach to culture and self. Three
developments are presented that challenge this approach: (a) cultural
connections leading to hybridization, (b) the emergence of a heterogeneous
global system, and (c) the increasing cultural complexity. By
elaborating on these challanges, a basic assumption of cross-cultural
psychology is questioned: culture as geographically localized.
Finally, 3 themes are described as examples of an alternative
approach: a focus on the contact zones of cultures rather than
on their center, the complexities of self and identity, and the
experience of uncertainty.
Hermans, H.J.M.,
Rijks, T.I., & Kempen, H.J.G. (1993). Imaginal dialogues in the
self: theory and method. Journal of Personality, 61,
206-236.
The
Western conception of the self as centralized or one-voiced is
contrasted with a decentralized, multivoiced view of the self.
The authors present two case studies of multivoiced selves, based
on data collected with Hermans' self-confrontation method.
Hermans, H.J.M.,
& Kempen, H.J.G. (1995). Body, mind, and culture: The dialogical
nature of mediated action.Culture & Psychology, 1,
103-114.
The
authors elaborate on Wertsch's proposal to overcome the individual-society
antinomy through an emphasis on culturally mediated action. Their
thesis is two-fold: (a) dialogue as a basic feature of the human
condition exceeds the boundaries of verbal conversation; (b) mediated
action -between body and self, and between the embodied self and
culture- is dialogical.
Kempen, H.,
Voestermans, P., & Welten, V. (1991). Cultuurpsychologie. [Cultural
psychology.] Nijmegen: Psychological Laboratory internal report.
A
short history of the unit of cultural psychology at the University
of Nijmegen: what inspired founding father Rutten? Fortmanns view
on cultural psychology; After Fortmann: the 'border crossing schools'
between psychology and the other social sciences; Early social
constructionism; Additions to social constructionism: the body
and non-narrative culture; cultural psychology and the other psychology
units at Nijmegen.
Kempen, H. J.
G. (1996). Mind as Body Moving in Space: Bringing the body back
into self-psychology. Theory & Psychology, 6, 717-733.
Critics
of psychology's view on personality and self as western and ethnocentric
and those with a growing interest in what is called the cultural
self both tend to advocate social constructionism as the better
paradigm. In social constructionism, however, the production of
cultures and concomitant selves seems to start from an empty human
biology. For a corrective to this Cartesian 'thinking above the
body', I return to Vico's 'wholly corporeal imagination' as the
starting point of social constructions. If the human body is universal
and if a selfing process is an evolutionary exigency, we may expect
to find self-universals or tasks to be undertaken by anybody in
any culture. Some five self-universals, each with its multiple
options, are sketched. These universal self-variables can be regarded
as a common genotypical matrix from which culturally specific,
phenotypical selves are derived. A parallel is sought in the hypothesis
of linguistic core notions. If, moreover, the body is the source
of universal self-features and if cultures put restrictions on
the feature combinations, we can ask ourselves -countering cultural
relativism- whether cultures and selves could be judged from what
they do to human bodies.
Key
words: body, cultural psychology, mind, self,social constructionism
Kempen, H. J.
G. (1996). Mind as Body Moving in Space: Bringing the body back
into self-psychology. In H. Stam (Ed.), Psychology and the body.
London: Sage.
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