[Xmca-l] Re: "sociocultural psychology" ?

Fri May 15 09:18:12 PDT 2020

Sorokin was also Prime Minister Kerensky's (Feb revolution) private secretary. After the October revolution he got involved in a bit of hapless counter-revolutionary activity and was condemned to the firing squad. Through the intervention of Lenin, Sorokin was offered a deal, as a prominent liberal figure. If he renounced, in an open published letter, his opposition to the Bolsheviks and made no further attacks, then he could take up his position as a sociologist at Moscow University. Lenin's logic was  that Sorokin gave up his opposition, this would make it easier for other of the liberal/professionals to do likewise. Needless to say Sorokin kept up his criticism of the Bolsheviks but no action was taken against him. However  when Lenin suffered a stroke and was in a coma, Sorokin, wisely, took himself and family off to America.
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From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>
Sent: 15 May 2020 15:48
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "sociocultural psychology" ?

Mike,
Just wondering if you ever heard of Pitirim Alexandrovich Sorokin's (Sociology, Harvard) use of "sociocultural" pre-WWII?
Any recollections?
-greg
(and in case anyone is interested in this Russian-born interdisciplinary sociologist who became the first head of the Sociology Department at Harvard (and used the term "sociocultural" in 1937): https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.suz.uzh.ch/dam/jcr:00000000-36d7-41d4-0000-000064b51e55/simpson_sorokin.pdf__;!!Mih3wA!Ry7F3NkBIM-6THFuSq3VzoYg9xNMHUkRxBCcIy53h-1tLqAzh1edLo6vNagCf6g1PyUtyA$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.suz.uzh.ch/dam/jcr:00000000-36d7-41d4-0000-000064b51e55/simpson_sorokin.pdf__;!!Mih3wA!U61xaS5eaEzj6VgLnz4h-ztQI9N-VIYPZ07rO-sJS8EAcChzCPy4ZTOn5wFGL0Q_oG9nrg$>)

On Thu, May 14, 2020 at 10:20 PM Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org<mailto:andyb@marxists.org>> wrote:

Mike tells me that my account is indeed "pretty muddled," so please do not quote anything from that email, and do not ascribe any of it to Mike. The chapter Mike sent around, and Jim Wertsch's book, are the places to go for reliable information.

Sorry.

Andy

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On 15/05/2020 11:24 am, Andy Blunden wrote:

In response to requests, I will elaborate. Apologies to Mike if I have garbled the long and complex story he told. I have done my best.

Jim Wertsch said:

Various people undoubtedly have various accounts of this, but I consciously started to use this in order to bring in cultural anthropology and also to avoid the unexamined social evolutionism in some approaches that I was building from.  I believe I started highlighting it in my 1985 book on Vygotsky, and by 1991 it was part of the subtitle of my book Voices of the Mind.  It is not a term used by Soviet scholars when talking about the Vygotsky tradition.  Instead, the terms there were “socio-historical” or “cultural-historical.”

Mike Cole told me:

In addition to what has been said on line ... initially, the term "sociocultural" was used as a term of abuse by the opponents of Vygotsky's ideas in the Soviet bureaucracy, so it was not a term which his Russian followers ever embraced. The Soviet hostility to Vygotsky came to a head, apparently, in 1986 when ISCRAT had a conference in Berlin and the Soviets prevented Russian delegates form attending. Jim Wertsch, who had been on a sabbatical year, and had been in the Soviet Union, and was angry about what he saw, was at the congress too and went from there to a conference in Spain where a group of Spanish Vygotskyists were arguing that Vygotskyists had ignored the needs, etc., of the "global South" and they used the term "sociocultural" for their approach, meaning something like Vygotsky+postcolonialism. Wertsch embraced this idea and henceforth adopted to term, meaning to distinguish himself from the Soviet-influence. CHAT emerged as a term a little later in an effort to unite the followers of the various brands of "Activity Theory" with those who did not embrace the Activity Theory of Vygotsky's Russian followers and stuck with Vygotsky. CHAT includes the H for History, because in all the various terms being used at that time, there was no attention to the important place of History in theory, and it was Mike who insisted on its inclusion.

Andy

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On 14/05/2020 11:55 am, Andy Blunden wrote:

I should have reported progress with my question.

Jim Wertsch responded to me on email and Mike Cole Skyped me and between these two I have a very rich history of the usage of this term and the various nuances it acquired and shed, and Mike has put the article Martin referred to on his academia.edu<https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://academia.edu__;!!Mih3wA!U61xaS5eaEzj6VgLnz4h-ztQI9N-VIYPZ07rO-sJS8EAcChzCPy4ZTOn5wFGL0SASQ5Q6w$> page for us all to read.

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.academia.edu/43037735/Sociocul_tural_studies_of_rnind_Edited_by__;!!Mih3wA!Ry7F3NkBIM-6THFuSq3VzoYg9xNMHUkRxBCcIy53h-1tLqAzh1edLo6vNagCf6hNKyFixA$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.academia.edu/43037735/Sociocul_tural_studies_of_rnind_Edited_by__;!!Mih3wA!R2PQRv7SmtSpShBHHVPDEjIG1-ol_VEYh22ETbbkrOTaZbmV95HyZtHr1MBppGr6Y2oI9g$>

As ever, XMCA has proved to be a bottomless mine of wisdom. Thank you.

Andy

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On 14/05/2020 1:38 am, Charles Bazerman wrote:
Thank you Anthony for the interesting question and link. The way I see this issue is that Vygotskian work attempts to understand human activity multi-dimensionally (or even better holistically, trying to reunite what the emergence of various parochial disciplines have pulled apart for analysis of the separate dimensions).  The different terms that Veresov points out as contending are simply foregrounding those sets of components that are most salient to the particular analyst at that moment.  To those we might add other elements that Vygotsky was interested in such as consciousness and language and experience and mediation (and even economics and human knowledge and education lurk in the background, as well as human neurodiversity as well as materialities of the experienced world).  That is the wonder of Vygotsky, even though he may have developed some of the components more than others and he was acting nominally as a psychologist--yet his approach allows the integration of all these components.

I therefore use different conjunctions of terms depending on what I am talking about, and I see activity as the overarching term--though this does not necessarily mean triangles all the time.  Rather activity is humans in motion, mobilizing multiple internal and external resources in situations.

While I would like some stability in terms, right now our different concerns and issues leave salience mutable. And I am not yet comfortable in being terminally enlisted into another scholar's transient saliencies.

BTW, I see another related, parallel attempt at reintegrating the social sciences in the pragmatist project which has at times been in communication with the activity theory project (see my paper "Practically Human").  This project also never settled on a coherent set of terms and stable concepts.

Chuck
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Los Estados Unidos es una nación de inmigrantes.
The U.S. is a nation of immigrants.
History will judge.
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On Wed, May 13, 2020 at 8:08 AM Anthony Barra <anthonymbarra@gmail.com<mailto:anthonymbarra@gmail.com>> wrote:
Interesting question (and follow-ups) here.  Thanks, Andy.

While not 100% related, I wonder if this brief, 2-minute excerpt adds any value: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT4uktowa-M__;!!Mih3wA!Ry7F3NkBIM-6THFuSq3VzoYg9xNMHUkRxBCcIy53h-1tLqAzh1edLo6vNagCf6gkOiui1A$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT4uktowa-M__;!!Mih3wA!WLyceskZQL4AGQL-pVuwd-RH-yfvzQvsIVerMU367Nw8BZjwVLHdZ94SZfyfIX_sfjyW7w$> "Pros and Cons of (terminological) Diversity"

As a non-expert, I can empathize with Nikolai's main point, but I'm not so sure the cons outweigh the pros here.

But what WOULD happen if a terminological consensus was formed -- could Vygotsky's theory (and methodology), in fact, be definitively defined?  If so, would the benefits of doing so outweigh the constraints?
I'm guessing this is an old conversation, and maybe even stale, but I'm more outsider than insider and don't really know.

Thank you for any insight.

Anthony

On Wed, May 13, 2020 at 10:19 AM Martin Packer <mpacker@cantab.net<mailto:mpacker@cantab.net>> wrote:
I had assumed you were looking for uses earlier than Jim Wertsch’s, Andy.

Jim used the term in titles in 1989 too. And in the introduction to this book he, along with Pablo del Rio and Amelia Alvarez, explain why in their view it’s the best term:

Wertsch, J. V., del Río, P., & Alvarez, A. (Eds.). (1995). Sociocultural studies of mind. Cambridge University Press.

Martin

On May 12, 2020, at 11:13 PM, Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org<mailto:andyb@marxists.org>> wrote:

Thanks to everyone for their help. It all went into the mix. Indeed, the term seems to have migrated from Spanish to English and the word "sociocultural" became popular in 1990, and it seems that Jim Wertsch is the fellow who triggered the explosion in "sociocultural psychology" with "Voices of the mind : a sociocultural approach to mediated action<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.worldcat.org/title/voices-of-the-mind-a-sociocultural-approach-to-mediated-action/oclc/797855062&referer=brief_results__;!!Mih3wA!WsWX2sD5ZfUnBEp3uLEVG7T0NliMnbPpuJl6VOoxtiFfKP5msJWjbZPFaCQ6jDWDMZtFSg$>" published by Harvard University Press in 1991.

Although "sociocultural" seems to be most widely associated with "context dependence," Wertsch's reference to "mediated action" in the title of this book makes it clear that for him "context" referred to the signs and artefacts mediating action.

Thanks again to all

Andy

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On 13/05/2020 12:26 pm, David Kellogg wrote:
Andy--

Go to to the Google N-gram site itself.
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://books.google.com/ngrams__;!!Mih3wA!Ry7F3NkBIM-6THFuSq3VzoYg9xNMHUkRxBCcIy53h-1tLqAzh1edLo6vNagCf6iKm-J2Gg$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://books.google.com/ngrams__;!!Mih3wA!Wt7qmS7sdvLo3anWG71NQFUJMvyFBqEy-mStjfAI_HEUpY8D8dQt5zHkl12Ld90MDkv2Mw$>
Then do your own n-gram for "sociocultural psychology". If you set the years you'll get better granularity in the document search.
On the bottom of the n-gram, there are some dates in blue--when you click on them, you should get a list of all the books used in the search.

dk

David Kellogg
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New Article: Ruqaiya Hasan, in memoriam: A manual and a manifesto.
Outlines, Spring 2020 https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238/167607__;!!Mih3wA!Ry7F3NkBIM-6THFuSq3VzoYg9xNMHUkRxBCcIy53h-1tLqAzh1edLo6vNagCf6gU-VMA-Q$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238/167607__;!!Mih3wA!Wt7qmS7sdvLo3anWG71NQFUJMvyFBqEy-mStjfAI_HEUpY8D8dQt5zHkl12Ld92Vl0flPg$>

New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works Volume One: Foundations of Pedology"
 https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!Ry7F3NkBIM-6THFuSq3VzoYg9xNMHUkRxBCcIy53h-1tLqAzh1edLo6vNagCf6gopnf0mw$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!Wt7qmS7sdvLo3anWG71NQFUJMvyFBqEy-mStjfAI_HEUpY8D8dQt5zHkl12Ld92EeQenpA$>

On Wed, May 13, 2020 at 11:17 AM Martin Packer <mpacker@cantab.net<mailto:mpacker@cantab.net>> wrote:
The earliest use of the term ‘sociocultural’ I’ve been able to find in English is this:

A sociocultural psychology, by Rogelio Diaz-Guerrero

In "Chicano psychology", 1977 - Academic Press

Diaz-Guerrero was Mexican psychologists whose publications in Spanish use the term ‘sociocultural’ frequently.

The 2nd edition of Chicano Psychology is available in Google books, and Diaz-Guerrero has a chapter in it, but titled The psychological study of the Mexican.

Martin

On May 12, 2020, at 8:47 PM, Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org<mailto:andyb@marxists.org>> wrote:

That graph from Google shows that usage of the term took off in 1988. How do we find out who wrote what in 1988?

And Google also tell us that "Sociocultural theory grew from the work of seminal psychologist Lev Vygotsky, who believed that parents, caregivers, peers, and the culture at large were responsible for developing higher-order functions. According to Vygotsky, learning has its basis in interacting with other people," together with a reference. So that is nice.

Andy

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On 13/05/2020 11:30 am, David Kellogg wrote:
Andy:

I did a Google N-gram on it. You probably thought of doing this too, but here's what I got.

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://books.google.com/ngrams/interactive_chart?content=sociocultural*psychology&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1*3B*2Csociocultural*20psychology*3B*2Cc0__;KyUlJSUl!!Mih3wA!Ry7F3NkBIM-6THFuSq3VzoYg9xNMHUkRxBCcIy53h-1tLqAzh1edLo6vNagCf6hcD2BhOQ$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://books.google.com/ngrams/interactive_chart?content=sociocultural*psychology&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1*3B*2Csociocultural*20psychology*3B*2Cc0__;KyUlJSUl!!Mih3wA!T9TXqTQDd-8tvv5PfuxbPkx6Drdw0VlIrRNfcypZApQv2jnziHRkeAppccOVAZEmjetMCg$>" width=900 height=500 marginwidth=0 marginheight=0 hspace=0 vspace=0 frameborder=0 scrolling=no

So it all starts around 1960. At first I thought this probably referred to the Hanfmann and Vakar "Thought and Language", but when I looked the only books that used the term were sports psychology books. The big uptick after 1992 is Vygotsky though.

Of course, this is all English only. I am sure you will find very different results in German, where "cultural historical psychology" is the trend identified with Dilthey, Spranger, and neo-Kantianism generally.

David Kellogg
Sangmyung University

New Article: Ruqaiya Hasan, in memoriam: A manual and a manifesto.
Outlines, Spring 2020 https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238/167607__;!!Mih3wA!Ry7F3NkBIM-6THFuSq3VzoYg9xNMHUkRxBCcIy53h-1tLqAzh1edLo6vNagCf6gU-VMA-Q$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238/167607__;!!Mih3wA!T9TXqTQDd-8tvv5PfuxbPkx6Drdw0VlIrRNfcypZApQv2jnziHRkeAppccOVAZFjmWjmLg$>

New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works Volume One: Foundations of Pedology"
 https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!Ry7F3NkBIM-6THFuSq3VzoYg9xNMHUkRxBCcIy53h-1tLqAzh1edLo6vNagCf6gopnf0mw$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!T9TXqTQDd-8tvv5PfuxbPkx6Drdw0VlIrRNfcypZApQv2jnziHRkeAppccOVAZGMmypSYw$>

On Tue, May 12, 2020 at 10:43 PM Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org<mailto:andyb@marxists.org>> wrote:

Can anyone tell me when and with whom the term "sociocultural psychology" originated?

Andy

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