Integrating the Emic (Indigenous) with the Etic (Universal)-A Case of Squaring the Circle or for Adopting a Culture Inclusive Action Theory Perspective

Toward Culturally Sensitive Development Paradigms: New Shifts, Limitations, and the Role of (Cross-) Cultural Psychology

In this paper, we tackle three central questions: (1) How is cultural sensitivity currently shaping development agendas? (2) How can collaborations between development agencies and (cross-) cultural psychologists ensure that development priorities are culturally sensitive and bottom-up, rather than culturally universal and top-down? And finally, (3) How can utopian thinking be used as a bottom-up research device to tap into the content of the social imaginary of people across cultures and contexts in a way that can inform and guide development paradigms? We review relevant literatures and research from development agencies, cultural, and cross-cultural psychology, highlight advancements in devising culturally sensitive development goals, and advocate for a bottom-up approach to prioritizing needs and goals of citizens across different cultures. To that end, we propose that utopian thinking could be leveraged as a culturally sensitive research tool that could illuminate culturally specific development needs and goals that have been left untapped by contemporary development approaches. We conclude by reiterating the importance of leveraging knowledge, research methods, and expertise from cultural and cross-cultural psychology to reach the ultimate development goal—the improvement of the human condition in a sustainable, equitable manner.

Towards a Cultural Psychology: Meaning and Social Practice as Key Elements

Several prominent scholars in the Social Sciences have defended the need for a new way of studying the relationship between culture and the individual. Over the last three decades, it has been common to find studies under the heading of Cultural Psychology (CP), which have focussed on the role of culture in historical and ontogenetic development. However, among the defenders of CP, there have been specific disagreements over theoretical and methodological aspects of the project. This lack of agreement is revealed by the different conceptions of the role of meaning and social practice in human psychological functioning. This paper aims is to analyze some different approaches to CP, and the role of meaning plays in its constitution. For us, the central claim of CP is that the human mind should be seen as inter-penetrated by intentional worlds that are culturally and historically situated, and this psychology must to study the ways psyche and culture; person and context, self and other, practitioner and practice live together, and jointly make each other up. In addition, CP has also identified the symbolic mediation of mind and culture as its analytical focus. Finally, we defend that culture and mind are to be treated as forms of culturally differentiated meaning practices. To make possible this enterprise, we propose the necessity to develop the notion of mediated and situated actions as a unit of analysis of Cultural Psychology.

Crisis? What crisis? Cross-cultural psychology’s appropriation of cultural psychology

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.