Resignifying the World Across and Beyond Categories

This book builds on the activities realized during the VI International Seminar of Cultural Psychology realized in May 2023 in Salvador de Bahia (Brazil), particularly a workshop forming a dialogical and open space of theoretical and methodological innovations. More specifically, researchers addressed meaning making processes that enable re-signifying reality across categories—dynamically shifting from one domain to another—and beyond them—developing synthesis and forming new ways of understanding and approaching cultural phenomenon. In this perspective the cultural processes that are discussed concern practical encounters –with people from different ages in different settings, particularly (but not exclusively) in the context of intervention— and pragmatic issues (how to approach people). In a neoliberal society in which language is used in its literal sense over its virtual meaning, categories tend to be reinforced in every iteration and potentially lead to segregation and exclusion as they are rendered invisible through interdiction of speaking (taboo) or framing social encounters with monological logic.

In this book, the authors shed new light on categorization by re-signifying it in a dynamic fashion in relation to a variety of domains (gender, mental health, movement, aesthetics, poverty, are some examples).

This book furnishes theoretical, methodological and practical tools that enable re-thinking about the process of recategorization. It has the potential to inspire the reframing of theory, research, as well as practices in psychology and other disciplines.

Dany Boulanger's profile is interdisciplinary but emphasises cultural psychology. He realized two postdoctoral projects in cultural psychology with Jaan Valsiner and Ana Cecilia Bastos in Denmark and Brazil. He is developing theoretical models based on an epistemology of movement that he is initiating. This entails going beyond Vygotsky, Bakhtin and Bronfenbrenner. He elaborates these models around the phenomena of intergenerationality, people’s development and learning across trajectories as well as the relationship between the school, the family and the community. He is also elaborating methodologies. He is doing action-research on intergenerationaity in community organizations in Canada (Quebec) and on child citizenship. He is a professor of special education in the Université of Quebec in Outaouais.

Virginia Dazzani is an Associate Professor in the Graduate Program in Psychology at the Psychology Institute and in the Graduate Program in Education, both at the Federal University of Bahia. She was a visiting scholar at Clark University, UnitedStates (CAPES/2009-2010 and CNPq/2015-2016) and had a grant as a visiting senior professor (PRINT/CAPES/UFBA) at GRIS (Research Group on Social Interaction/ Psychology Lab.) at Università degli Studi di Salerno (Italy) from July to August 2019. She was a visiting professor at Università degli Studi di Salerno (Italy) through CAPES PRINT UFBA (2022-2023). She is coordinator of the research group entitled Investigations in Cultural Psychology: Culture, Language, Transitions and Developmental Trajectories (CULTS/UFBA) and currently leads an international research entitled Under the Sign of Poverty. She is an associate editor of the journal Social Psychology of Education (Springer), a member of the Scientific Committee of Springer (New York) for the Book Series on Cultural Psychology of Education, and participates on the Scientific Board of the journal Human Arenas (Springer). Currently she is vice-coordinator of the Postgraduate Program in Psychology (2022-2024). She was coordinator of the Basic Chamber of Scientific-Technological Assessment and Evaluation in the area of Human Sciences and Education of FAPESB (March 2013 to December 2014/March 2015 to December 2016) and coordinator of the Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Philosophy and Human Sciences. She is a member of the Center for Studies on Development and Cultural Contexts/CNPq and a member of the School and Educational Psychology Working Group (ANPEPP). She has experience in the area of School and Educational Psychology, working mainly on the following themes: family-school-community relationship, psychosocial and educational dynamics in poverty contexts, university life, school complaint, knowledge and learning, developmental transitions and educational processes.

Nandita Chaudhary is presently a Visiting Professor to the Department of Cultural Psychology at the Federal University of Bahia, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, for a period of two years. She taught at the University of Delhi, Lady IrwinCollege from 1982 – 2017. She continues to supervise doctoral dissertations at the College. She has been a Fulbright scholar at the Psychology Department, Clark University, USA, during the years 1993 – 94, and was awarded a Senior Fellowship of the ICSSR (Indian Council for Social Science Research) from 2012 - 2014. She has authored several publications in the field.