Social Representations and the Politics of Participation

Abstract

Recent work has called for the integration of different perspectives into the field of political psychology (e.g., Haste, 2012). This chapter suggests that one possible direction that such efforts can take is studying the role that social representations theory can play in understanding political participation and social change. Social representations are systems of common-sense knowledge and social practice; they provide the lens through which to view and create social and political realities, mediate people's relations with these socio-political worlds and defend cultural and political identities. Social representations are therefore key for conceptualising participation as the activity that locates individuals and social groups in their socio-political world. Political participation is generally seen as conditional to membership of socio-political groups and therefore is often linked to citizenship. To be a citizen of a society or a member of any social group one has to participate as such. Often political participation is defined as the ability to communicate one's views to the political elite or to the political establishment (Uhlaner, 2001), or simply explicit involvement in politics and electoral processes (Milbrath, 1965). However, following scholars on ideology (Thompson, 1990;Eagleton, 1991) and social knowledge (Jovchelovitch, 2007), we extend our understanding of political participation to all social relations and also develop a more agentic model where individuals and groups construct, develop and resist their own views, ideas and beliefs. We This chapter is divided into four parts: the first lays out social representations theory (SRT); the second highlights the ways in which SRT offers a contextualised and dynamic approach to the politics of participation; the third part examines the role of recognition in shaping the participation of different social groups; the final part explores the possibilities for agency and resistance in contexts of contested participation. We conclude with a discussion of the benefits of incorporating social representations theory into Political Psychology.

A moment of change: Facilitating refugee children's mental health in UK schools

“…In this context the school and school peers are likely to play a key role in the social representation whilst in other contexts this can be different. For example in Kenya, child carers were influenced by their ability to participate in community life and actively navigate and negotiate social support (Skovdal and Andreouli, 2011) and in other groups political participation is important for social recognition (Howarth et al, 2014).…”

Essentialism in Social Representations of Citizenship: An Analysis of Greeks' and Migrants' Discourse

“…Essentialism is shown to demarcate social relations, draw intergroup boundaries, reinforce ingroup identities, and justify discriminatory intergroup relations (Holtz & Wagner, ; Yzerbyt, Corneille, & Estrada, ). By studying the use of essentialism, we thus delve deeper into the political dimensions of knowledge construction, a need identified by Social Representations' theorists (Howarth, Andreouli, & Kessi, ).…”

‘Changing the context’: Tackling discrimination at school and in society

“…In fact, all representations contain the 'seeds of change' insofar as the ability to debate and argue is part of the representational process of human thinking (Billig, 1987;Howarth, 2006). Moreover, although asymmetries in dialogue and recognition help to maintain dominant representations, they are also the starting point for the negotiation of existing knowledge because they create the possibility for debate and contestation (Howarth, Andreouli & Kessi, 2014). It follows that more 'dialogical' contexts are conducive for the development of more 'open', knowledge-based representations (Jovchelovitch, 2007).…”