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In the current era of citizenship politics, both legal citizenship and cultural citizenship have become highly contested social categories and new bases for social discrimination. Psychological studies of migration thus need to consider more explicitly how shifting sociopolitical contexts shape migrant life opportunities and how migrants respond to their shifting circumstances. Cultural psychologists have much to contribute to this project given their focus on the ways cultural experiences are shaped at once by broader social determinants and the intentional acts of social agents who navigate diversely organized worlds. However, we argue that cultural psychologists need to integrate critical concepts into cultural psychological studies of migration to avoid both overlooking important determinants of migrant lives and inadvertently perpetuating social inequalities and discriminatory policies. Drawing upon qualitative research conducted with Polish "irregular" migrants in Canada and Sikh Americans, we show how critical concepts such as "illegalization," "deportability," and "cultural citizenship" can help expand cultural psychological inquiry to better understand contemporary immigrant experiences. We conclude with discipline-specific recommendations for building a cultural psychology fit for the study of migration in the 21st-century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, migration scholars have challenged reified categories of 'illegal' migrants and observed migrant 'illegalization' and deportability as exploitative sociopolitical processes. Yet, in the move away from studying 'undocumented migrants' as distinct epistemic subjects, we argue that scholars have lost sight of migrants as agents. Consequently, migrant lives are explained in terms of social determinants rather than migrants' intentional acts or cultural meaning systems. This paper shows how a cultural psychological study of migrant 'illegality' can help restore focus on the migrant as situated agent without reifying or legitimizing categories of migrant 'illegality.' To this end, we discuss ethnographic research conducted with Polish 'irregular' migrants living in Toronto and Mississauga in Canada. From a cultural psychological perspective, we examine how these migrants understood and navigated their unique status-related challenges to build meaningful lives in contradictory and precarious conditions. Our research reveals how Polish migrants learn to become 'irregular' as they develop common modes of being suitable for navigating the underground of Canada's Polish Canadian enclave. Importantly, becoming 'irregular' is neither a passive nor unilaterally imposed process but involves discernible psychosocial dynamics characterized by recurrent threats and fears as well as migrants' deliberate attempts to address and overcome these. We discuss these dynamics as cycles of deportability to mark their cyclical and recurrent nature and argue that they are central for the development of migrant 'illegality' and deportability. We conclude by considering the implications of our findings for understanding agency in the context of migrant 'illegalization.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whereas cross-cultural psychology and cultural psychology have been distinguished as separate projects for decades, talk about their possible collaboration is becoming increasingly common. Several scholars have described their differences as essentially non-oppositional and the latest Handbook of Cultural Psychology combines articles from both research traditions. This paper scrutinizes these consolidating efforts first by tracing historically how the two accounts of culture (cultural and cross-cultural) developed, and second, by examining whether their long-standing epistemological premises allow for the kind of collaboration advocated by some scholars. We argue that attempts to combine the disciplines come primarily from cross-cultural psychologists who appear increasingly challenged by cultural and indigenous psychological approaches. Attempts at a merger have been twofold: on the one hand, cross-cultural psychologists who seek to preserve the status of their discipline have expanded its scope to include cultural theorists; on the other hand, cross-cultural scholars persuaded by cultural theories are creating a new blend of ‘experimental cultural psychology’ that seeks to accommodate both programs. These proposals, in our view, exemplify a cross-cultural discipline in crisis, struggling to account for a growing cultural psychology. We conclude that the overlapping interests between cross-cultural and cultural scholars make this a propitious time for cross-disciplinary dialogue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dialogical self, defined as a dynamic multiplicity of I-positions, has been taken up in multiple ways in psychology generally and cultural psychology specifically. As a self unfolding dynamically with others in a world, the dialogical self is at its foundation ethical. Self scholars have recognized the ethical nature of the dialogical self, but have not yet described how the self navigates its course in light of the demands and considerations of others. We examine this by turning to the phenomenological and hermeneutic account of self offered by Paul Ricoeur. Ricoeur provides a dialectical and cultural theory of the self that shares important similarities with the dialogical self, meriting a theoretical comparison. Most importantly, Ricoeur gives a detailed description of the self's ethical framework. We employ his insights in the current paper to reveal the manner in which the dialogical self is oriented toward the good in lived experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]