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Moscovici’s theory of ideas is formulated comprehensively in Psychoanalysis, Its Image and Its Public (Moscovici, 2008), although we can also see it very clearly in his theory of minority influence (Moscovici, 1976). In his study of psychoanalysis, Moscovici set out to study how psychoanalysis enters the public sphere and becomes a cultural factor. There he investigated how a set of ideas, assumptions and practices moves into the social domain and is transformed by its encounter with a plural...

The study aims to demonstrate how time and patterns of transmission and communication inscribe themselves in the internal organization of social representations. For this purpose, it presents a discussion of the role of the central core of representations in relation to continuity and change in ideas and public spheres. Jean-Claude Abric’s insights on the internal structure of representational fields contribute to the proposition of an expanded theory of the central core that rests on a dialogue with narrative theory, dialogicality and recent advances in the knowledge of cognitive polyphasia. In other words, the paper leads the reader into a socio-genetic approach to the central core, one that seeks to elucidate how the socio-cognitive organization of social representations is shaped and at the same time shapes continuity and change in public spheres.

Although children are born in a world of already established cultural practices and social representations, the appropriation and internalisation of culture is not a task of reproduction but one of imaginative construction. The cultural development of the child offers an empirical opportunity to examine the role of the imagination in the practices whereby human children enter culture. In this chapter we focus on three such practices – care, play, and storytelling – to observe the imagination at work. We start by revisiting understandings of the imagination and propose a positive view that sees it as the human capacity to go beyond the immediate situation and play with possible realities. We suggest that the interplay between presence and absence, grounded in the interactions between self and other established by culture, is the defining feature of the imagination. Drawing on our research on children’s representations of the public sphere we explore the complexity of children’s imagination and propose a typology of engagement with the absent: the not yet there, impinged by anticipation and desire; the nowhere, pertaining to the fictional and the fantastic; and the elsewhere, characterised by absent elements the child is aware of through direct or indirect experience. Throughout the chapter, we are guided by the question of how these types of engagement with absence, which are central to the imagination, play out in practices of care, play, and storytelling. This exploration helps us understand the imagination as both an engine and a consequence of development, central for the cognitive, emotional and cultural development of the child and for the development of culture itself. By imagining the world both as what it is and as different from the way it is, we show that 1) children’s imaginative engagement guides the micro-genesis of cognition and macro-processes of cultural development and 2) it establishes the freedom to create as a key process in the realisation of self and society.

Este manual provee información, recursos y herramientas basadas en las lecciones y resultados de la investigación Sociabilidades Subterráneas, una colaboración internacional e interinstitucional que estudió la identidad, cultura y resistencia de favelas en Río de Janeiro.

Este guia prático traz informações, recursos e instrumentos baseados em lições e resultados da pesquisa Sociabilidades Subterrâneas, uma parceria internacional e interinstitucional que estudou a identidade, a cultura e a resiliência de favelas no Rio de Janeiro.

This toolkit provides information, resources and tools based on the lessons and research findings of Underground Sociabilities, an international and interinstitutional partnership that studied the identity, culture and resilience of favela communities in Rio de Janeiro.

Este é um livro que estuda padrões de sociabilidade e desenvolvimento social em favelas do Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. Ele examina como estas comunidades, apesar de difíceis condições de vida, pobreza e segregação, são capazes de mobilizar recursos locais para resistir à exclusão, lutar contra a marginalização e reescrever as relações entre as favelas e a cidade. Baseando-se em um estudo psicossocial de quatro favelas - Cantagalo, Madureira, Cidade de Deus e Vigário Geral - o livro traça as rotas de socialização nas favelas e sistematiza o trabalho das organizações AfroReggae e CUFA, analisando os determinantes institucionais e comportamentais de escolhas de vida nessas comunidades, a dinâmica da capacidade para a ação em contextos de privação e a origem de ações positivas para a mudança social. O livro mostra que os fatores individuais e sociais interagem para moldar as escolhas e tomadas de decisão nas rotas de socialização. Estes incluem o quadro institucional presente na vida da favela, os níveis de porosidade nas fronteiras entre as favelas e a cidade e os andaimes psicossociais que suportam e mediam como as pessoas lidam com a adversidade contextual. O livro será útil para acadêmicos nas ciências sociais e humanas, governos, legisladores, órgãos públicos, ativistas e todos aqueles que estão interessados em questões urbanas, no desenvolvimento social e comunitário centrado no ser humano e na comunicação como solução para as assimetrias da cidade contemporânea. O livro está disponível, gratuito e na íntegra, através do link ‘Published item’ acima.

In this paper we demonstrate that societal psychology makes a unique contribution to the study of change through its focus on the 'contextual politics' of change, examining the different interests at stake within any social context. Societal psychology explores the contexts which promote or inhibit social and societal change and can be seen as a bridge between social and political psychology. It focuses on how the context shapes the ways in which societal change is understood, supported or resisted. To understand the intellectual rationale of societal psychology, and how it aims to foster societal change, we first consider the history of the discipline. Second, we consider what is meant by 'context', as understanding the environment of change is the hallmark of societal psychology. Third, we lay out three distinct features of a societal psychological approach to change: the politics of change; interventions and planned change; emergent change processes. Finally, the paper examines possible future developments of societal psychology and its role in understanding and creating societal change, alongside its place within the wider canon of social and political psychology. The article is available in full, free of charge, via the published item link referred to above.

This is a book about patterns of sociability and social development in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It examines how favela communities, despite harsh conditions of living, poverty and segregation, have been able to mobilise local resources to resist exclusion, fight off marginalisation and rewrite relations between the favelas and the city. Drawing on a psychosocial study of four favela communities – Cantagalo, Madureira, City of God and Vigario Geral – the book maps out routes of socialisation in the favelas and systematises the work of local grassroots organisations AfroReggae and CUFA. It explores the institutional and behavioural determinants of life choices in these communities, the dynamics of agency in contexts of deprivation and how positive action for change emerges. The book shows that individual and social factors interact to shape choices and decision-making in the routes of socialisation. These include the institutional framework of favela life, the levels of porosity in the borders between the favelas and the city and the psychosocial scaffoldings that support and mediate how people deal with contextual adversity. The book will be useful to academics in the social sciences and humanities, policymakers, activists and all those who are interested in human-centred social and community development, urban planning, and communication across asymmetries in the contemporary city. The book is available in full, free of charge, via the PDF and published item link referred to above.

Cet article porte sur l’usage des focus groups dans la recherche sur les représentations sociales. Je situe cet usage dans un cadre conceptuel tenant compte de la manière dont les représentations et les groupes sont liés par des cultures et des interactions communicationnelles. Me fondant sur la psychologie de la vie de groupe, je mets en évidence trois dimensions qui participent de la formation des groupes et soulignent l’interdépendance des représentations et des stratégies communicationnelles. Je considère trois composantes essentielles de tout groupe : la triade self-autrui-observateur, les pratiques dialogiques qui ont lieu au sein du groupe, ainsi que la multiplicité du groupe. En analysant ces trois aspects et en comprenant leurs variations en fonction des contextes et des cultures, il est possible d’aller au-delà de l’idée que les groupes ont pour seule fonction de produire du débat et de l’argumentation. Les attentes habituelles des chercheurs au sujet du fonctionnement des focus groups peuvent alors être remises en question : argumenter au sujet d’un thème central ne va pas de soi dans toutes les cultures. En conséquence, plutôt que d’admettre que les groupes dans lesquels les participants ne discutent pas d’un thème donné selon les attentes du chercheur sont des groupes qui « ne marchent pas », je propose de questionner la nature des sphères sociales impliquées dans une recherche, ainsi que la manière dont la culture modèle le dialogue et l’argumentation. Insérer les pratiques groupales dans un contexte permet de comprendre pourquoi des groupes « ne marchent pas » comme prévu. Cela constitue, par ailleurs, un outil important pour les chercheurs : l’analyse de sens/signification est complétée par l’analyse des phénomènes opérant au niveau groupal. Des recherches sur les représentations sociales menées au Guatemala, au Brésil et en Angleterre offrent des illustrations empiriques à cet argument théorique.

Traditionally, knowledge has been seen as an epistemic form opposed to belief. Whereas for the external observer knowledge carries the possi¬bility mid the promise of truth, belief rests on the uncertainties associated with the bias of subject, society and culture. In this paper I would like to problematise this view by proposing knowledge as a more encompassing term that can comprise different epistemic forms and ultimately different rationalities. Knowledge, I argue, is a plural and plastic form that needs to be understood as an action grounded in the network of relationships from which it emerges and in which it becomes possible. This argument rests in. the analysis of representation, how it works and the functions it aims to fulfil. In order to capture diversity in knowledge it is crucial to cap¬ture the constituents of representation and its social psychological func¬tioning: Once we understand that the aims of representation can be diver¬se and related to the different objectives and functions of a form of kno¬wing in social life, the over-sharp distinction between knowledge and belief collapses. I shall expand this argument by suggesting that different forms of knowing need to be assessed in terms of what they want to repre¬sent and how the desire to represent shapes the process of constructing knowledge. Based on this conceptualisation I shall introduce a typology of forms of knowing which I hope can help to dismantle classical views that see knowledge in terms of a hierarchical scale where lower forms progress towards a higher. better, and more « civilised » form of knowing.

This paper attempts to discuss the 'versatility' of the concept of social representations, in the context of the Anglo-saxon tradition of social psychological research. This is done by analysing some of the concept's internal features - what we call the 'openness' of the concept - along with the various ways in which it has been incorporated by other approaches within social psychology - bringing about what we call the 'closure' of the concept. It is suggested that the theory has provided a 'convenient social package' to social psychological perspectives historically criticized as being asocial. The use of pre-established methods and techniques combined with social representations theory provides a "safe" territory to do research, where one introduces something allegedly "novel", i.e. the social, and at the same time does not assume the full consequences of that novelty. We argue that while the very openness and flexibility of the concept might invite convenient combinations, these are usually achieved at a cost. The theoretical integrity of the concept is compromised, mainly by treating social representations as a technological answer to theoretical lacuna of other perspectives. The outcome is a premature epistemological closure of the concept, which disempowers its otherwise lively theoretical resources.

This short piece comments on discussion of theories of social representations contained in Papers on Social Representations volume 2, 1993