On the Constitution of ‘Self’ and ‘Mind’

Abstract

Abstract. This article introduces a perspective in which questions at a psychological grain of analysis are integrated with a broad societal frame of interpretation, drawing on interdisciplinary feminist writings that provide alternative ways to theorize the social. It is argued that understanding the constitution of subjectivity, 'self' and thought requires a societal-level model of the social with both discursive and material constituents as well as local discursive processes that are deployed within, and configured through, that broader system. It is further argued that the ontological notion of a 'person' (in a specific, non-modern sense of 'person' and in a specific sense of 'ontological') is a conceptually necessary part of the theoretical language, as the anchor for processes of social constitution and as the substrate of agency, where agency is theorized as a multilevel process. One central claim developed in this article is that it is through the dialectic among these societal-level, local, and personal constituents that subjectivity, 'self' and thought are constituted, a 'self' that is assumed to be situated, hybrid, complex, tension-filled and unstable, yet substantial.Key Words: agency, discourse, feminism, mind, poststructuralism, self, sociocultural, subjectivity, thinkingThe social sciences have undergone major transformations in the last few decades, both in theoretical frameworks and in relations between disciplines. New questions are asked, and new, transdisciplinary objects of knowledge are constructed that integrate the societal, the cultural, the symbolic and the individual levels of analysis of social processes. Psychology in particular is slowly emerging from its individualistic and isolationist disciplinary history, as evidenced by the increasing impact of social constructionist perspectives, feminist interdisciplinary analyses, critical race theory or cultural approaches to the study of psychological processes.This article introduces a theoretical perspective that is animated by two convictions. The first is that theorizing about subjectivity and thought requires a broad, macro-level systemic model of the social world, a feature Theory & Psychology

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