Dialogical Self in a Complex World: The Need for Bridging Theories
Gradually, however, I noticed that this dualistic perception was untenable as I became aware of the work of physicists—quantum physics and chaos theory in particular—who had created room for indeterminism and psychologists who acknowledged that even conscious decisions are, at least partly, determined by non-conscious processes preceding conscious awareness. (1)
Cartesian mind-body dualism is insufficient to construct a full picture of the self, and as we develop more in our understanding of the different ways we are connected and influenced by the world around us there's reason to view:
That the self is highly complex as a social, societal, brain-based, and body-based construct. The question is then, how can we make theories extensive and flexible enough to create bridges between the different, highly specialized disciplines and sub-disciplines. (1)
JohnTheDuncan - Green Colonialism.pdf
- one of the axes of this interconnectivity - global relationships of production, power and distribution.
Nods towards the post-human - it would be interesting to do a bit of a comparison between the two concepts, the Dialogic and Posthuman selves.
dialogicselftheory as a "Bridging theory" - not one that seeks to be a universal or unifying, but rather a space where different disciplines, theories etc. can link up - "create new and unexpected linkages" (2)
The I-position
insp - William James and Herbert Mead (I) and Mikhail Bakhtin (position)
The word ‘I’ refers to a subject-position, a first-person perspective, from which the world and the self is perceived, experienced, and evaluated. The notion of ‘position,’ .., emphasizes the spatial nature of the self. The self is always somewhere, (2)
positioning the self, being positioned by social forces, answering back the positioning.
In this ways the process of positioning is an iterative and reciprocal way of participants placing themselves and others as part of social, cultural or societal forms of relationships. (2)
Self-Other distinction - cannot be sharp, the other as an extension of the self, as "another I" the-other-in-the-self
Along these lines, we have proposed a dialogical self as a composite term in which James’s extended self is brought together with Bakhtin’s notion of dialogue. In this way, a between-concept (dialogue) is combined with a within-concept (self) so that a conceptual basis is created for the transportation of the internal constructions of the self to the social and societal world and vice versa. In this way, self and the social environment intrinsically belong together and may question, correct, enrich each other and contribute to each other’s development. (2)
The dominance and power relationships in society at large are reflected in dominance and power relationships in the mini-society of the self. However, the self is not a pure ‘reflection’ of what is taking place outside and it is not simply determined by external factors. On the basis of its own agentic potentials the dialogical self is able to give, in the form of counter-positioning, any answer to the influences coming from outside. Along these lines, the dialogical self has the potential to escape both determinism and self-other dualism.
My thoughts
It has an appeal - I agree that there is a need to bridge some of the gaps between different approaches to identity and experience. There's an awareness of the need for holistic approaches in pedagogy, psychology and social support structures too.