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Sociocultural Subjectivities : Progress, Prospects, Problems

Suzanne R. Kirschner Theory Psychology 2010 20: 765 DOI: 10.1177/0959354310375745 The online version of this article can be found at: http://tap.sagepub.com/content/20/6/765

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Sociocultural Subjectivities
Progress, Prospects, Problems Suzanne R. Kirschner

college of The holy cross

AbsTrAcT. Strongly constitutive sociocultural perspectives in psychology have become more developed and influential in recent decades, particularly during the past 15 years. These approaches include constructionist, discursive, relational, dialogical, and neo-Vygotskian theories. They diverge from one another in some respects, but are alike in that they all consider psychological processes, such as mind and self, to emerge out of social, cultural, and historical contexts. This paper explores some central themes and commitments that inhere in these approaches, particularly with regard to how subjectivity is historically and relationally constituted. It emphasizes the importance of further legitimizing them within psychology and adjacent disciplines. It also points out some current limitations, suggesting that they risk what social theorist Dennis Wrong called an oversocialized conception of human beings. Key Words: activity theory, cultural psychology, culture, discursive psychology, hermeneutics, narrative, psychoanalysis, social constructionism

During the past several decades, many theoretical psychologists have participated in efforts to reconceptualize psychologys subject matter so that it embodies a more thoroughgoing recognition of the ways that psychological phenomena, such as the mind and the self, emerge out of social and cultural contexts. These sociocultural processes are theorized as being local and transient (e.g., enactments or interactions within particular situations and relational configurations), as well as more widely diffused and enduring (e.g., cultural traditions, narratives, historical ontologies, and structural relations of power). Factored into virtually all of these sociocultural perspectives are

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acknowledgements of, and inquiries into, the ways that psychologists theories and practices themselves are sociocultural products and producers. These sociocultural psychologieswhich have undergone significant elaboration in recent years, and whose architects have published repeatedly on these pagesare surely worthy of inclusion in this 20th anniversary issue of Theory & Psychology. In this essay, I underscore their significance both for the field of psychology and for adjacent social and cultural disciplines. First I highlight some of their fundamental assumptions about the mind and the self, as well as some points on which they diverge from one another. Then I consider some fundamental social and existential themes that will need to be more fully integrated into sociocultural approaches to subjectivity as they are further developed in the future. Constitutive Sociocultural Psychologies Using the rubric strongly constitutive sociocultural psychology, Jack Martin and I (Kirschner & Martin, 2010) recently summarized a number of shared themes and commitments found in several of the most enduring and influential of these approaches: social constructionist, discursive, hermeneutic, dialogical, and neo-Vygotskian psychologies. Our aim was to explore the similarities, as well as some of the differences, between these perspectives, as well as to highlight the fact that they are continuing to develop and to gain legitimacy within the field of psychology. Fundamental shared themes include: the undoing of conventional dualisms in psychology; an account of agency as an emergent property of human subjects; and a metatheoretical vision of psychological inquiry as a reflexive, situated, and activistic enterprise in which theory itself is a form of praxis. Sociocultural approaches are hence similar to one another in that they consider psychological entities such as mind, self, identity, cognition, memory, emotion, personality, and psychopathologyand thus the processes associated with peoples inner lives that we call subjectivity1to emerge out of social, cultural, and historical contexts. For nearly 40 years, many distinguished psychologists2 have contributed seminal writings in which they have both developed these approaches and helped to promote their legitimacy within the field of psychology (e.g., Bruner, 1990; Gergen, 1995; Harr & Gillett, 1994; Henriques, Hollway, Urwin, Venn, & Walkerdine, 1984; Hermans & Kempen, 1993; Messer, Sass, & Woolfolk, 1988; Potter & Wetherell, 1987; Shweder, 1990). More recentlyespecially during the past 15 yearsthese and other sociocultural psychologists have continued to construct and refine these approaches: they have further developed and extended central themes (e.g., Cole, 1996; Gergen, 2001, 2009; Harr, 2002; Harr, Moghaddam, Cairnie, Rothbart, & Sabat, 2009; Hermans, 2002; Ratner, 2002; Shotter, 2003, 2010; Stetsenko & Arievitch, 2004; Valsiner & Van der Veer, 2000) and extended their reach into domains such as postcolonial and

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global psychology (Bhatia, 2002, 2007; Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010; Hoshmand, 2006). They have also responded successfully to criticisms that constitutive sociocultural approaches entail social determinism and moral relativism, by demonstrating how such psychologies can account for the dynamics of agency, resistance, and innovation (Butler, 1997; Magnusson & Marecek, 2010; Michel & Wortham, 2002; Sugarman, 2005) and are always situated and engaged rather than value-free (Richardson, Fowers, & Guignon, 1999; Sugarman, 2009). Finally, they have continued to show how sociocultural approaches can be applied to social and historical analysis (Hacking, 2006) and how discursive, interpretive, and other such methods can be used in many areas of psychological and social research and practice (Benwell & Stokoe, 2007; Tolman & Brydon-Miller, 2001; Wortham, 2001). Most of the strongly constitutive perspectives considered here make the subject or subjectivity a central focus. In doing so, these psychologies participate in longstanding, still ongoing philosophical and psychological projects that criticize some or all aspects of the Cartesian characterization of the subject as a bounded, unified, interiorized, rational, self-transparent entity. This calling into question of the notion of isolated subjectivity is accompanied by corollary challenges to the assumption of a bifurcation between the subject and all that which is generally deemed external to or other than ite.g., culture, society, other persons. Attributes of the socioculturally constituted subject that are emphasized in one or more of these perspectives include its historicity, relationality, multiplicity, subjectification, and (for some) its status as an enacted as opposed to interiorized phenomenon. The subjects historicity (its emergence out of macrosocial, cultural, and historical contexts) has been illustrated in studies of both normative and pathological forms of personhood (Cushman, 1995; Hacking, 2006; E. Martin, 2007; Sass, 1993), as well as studies of other self-related psychological phenomena such as autobiographical narrative (Freeman, 2010). The subjects relationality (i.e., its constitution in relationship) is framed in a number of ways by different theorists, and pervades the work of social (Gergen, 2009; Shotter, 2003, 2010), clinical (Slife, 2004), and psychoanalytic (Stolorow & Atwood, 2002) psychologists who work within relational perspectives. Sociocultural psychologies also evince several variations on the themes of the subjects multiplicity, its subjection to and production by relations of power, and its status as performance or enactment rather than interiority.3 The concepts, methods, and ethical themes found in these sociocultural psychologies frequently (though not inevitably) overlap with those present in critical, feminist, postcolonial, communitarian, and other forms of social, cultural, and literary studies, and thus many sociocultural psychologists have both drawn upon and contributed to these projects. Given these affinities with the epistemological, moral, and political preoccupations of much recent social and cultural theory, one might also include under the rubric of sociocultural psychology the contributions of structuralist and poststructuralist

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psychoanalytic theorists (Butler, 1997; Kristeva, 1980/1982; Malone, 2000), who have likewise focused on the sociocultural constitution of subjectivity. Some aspects of that general family of perspectives will be considered later in this essay. One might also consider including under the constitutive sociocultural umbrella some relatively more conventional social-cultural psychological approaches which inquire into the cultural variability of the mind and self (e.g., Berry, Poortinga, Segall, & Dasen, 1992). Indeed, such contributions have helped to diminish Euro-American psychologys ethnocentrism and to move it toward a more global perspective. However, several theoretical commitments distinguish the approaches Martin and I call strongly constitutive from cross-cultural, and even some cultural, psychologies. First, strongly constitutive sociocultural perspectives evince commitments to a non-objectivist theory of knowledge (Bernstein, 1983) and a post-positivist approach to science. Related to this is their explicit insistence that mind and self be treated not as temporally or ontologically preexisting variables that are acted upon by culture, but rather as emergent phenomena. The extent and implications of strongly constitutive socioculturalists critique of and challenge to psychologys scientismparticularly with regard to the question of what methods are appropriate for this kind of researchare further discussed later in this section. A second important difference from more conventional versions of crosscultural or cultural psychology lies in the fact that most of the strongly constitutive projects have emerged not only in response to the inadequacies of mainstream psychology, but also as critiques of modern society and culture. They are not all of one mind about what the problem with modernity is. Thus, many hermeneutic psychologists criticize modern and late modern societies because they consider the forms of life that they engender to undercut older cultural and moral traditions that sustain individual virtue, social harmony (Richardson et al., 1999), and emotional or existential well-being (Cushman, 1995; Sass, 1993). By contrast, some discursive and poststructuralist psychologists (Magnusson & Marecek, 2010) and dialogical theorists (e.g., Bhatia, 2002) intend for their sociocultural perspectives to help shed light on the oppressive, enduringly undemocratic aspects of both traditional and contemporary cultural discourses; they explore the sociocultural constitution of the self and other psychological entities in order to analyze the dynamics through which subjectivities embody relationships of unequal power. Still other sociocultural theorists (Stetsenko & Arievitch, 2004; Sugarman & Martin, 2010) draw on G.H. Meads symbolic interactionism, as well as critical or post-Marxist theories, to envision the potential of societies, and the selves with which they are in symbiosis, to evolve towards more democratic and collaborative forms of life. Whatever their distinctive concerns, nearly all of these approaches contain some genuine potential for sociopolitical engagement, and even for resistance to a status quo, however the latter is envisioned.

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Strongly constitutive sociocultural psychologies have very deep and far-reaching roots. They extend backward in time as far as one might care to lookeven all the way to classical philosophers, as well as to both enlightenment and romantic thinkers (Seigel, 2005)while also evincing the powerful influence of the seminal modern traditions of social theory established in the writings of Karl Marx, mile Durkheim, Max Weber, Wilhelm Dilthey, and G.H. Mead, among others. They are even more directly connected to a wide, eclectic range of 20th- and early 21st-century intellectual (and, in some cases, sociopolitical) movements and thinkers. Among the relatively more recent theorists they draw upon are J.L. Austin, Mikhail Bakhtin, Robert Bellah, Michel Foucault, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Ian Hacking, Martin Heidegger, Gilbert Ryle, Michael Sandel, Charles Taylor, Lev Vygotsky, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. The near-absence of psychologists from that list of names is, of course, noteworthy. A related point of note is that although the theoretical developments associated with these names have had a strong impact on some of the other social sciencesparticularly anthropology, sociology, and cultural studiesthe majority of mainstream psychologists (both those who study mental processes and behavior, and those who focus predominantly on the brain and other neurobiological structures and processes) have tended to eschew ongoing commerce with these intellectual movements. Instead, they have sought legitimation for their discipline through its being considered a science, since being so designated brings with it far greater access to material, social, cultural, and symbolic capital. Sociocultural psychologists reject psychologys dominant scientistic stance on several grounds. The first is that it tends to be associated with an understanding of science that is overly simplified. One such oversimplification is evident in that, as numerous theorists have pointed out (Shweder, 2001), science is not just one type of inquiry or practice; rather, the natural sciences are far more heterogeneous than is often apparent in many images of them that circulate in popular and professional imaginations. The second reason for their aversion to scientism is that much human experience and activity cannot gracefully fit into the experimental or quasi-experimental models that psychologists tend to favor. Thus, as Richard Williams has put it, the methods drive the research, which frequently results in distortion of the phenomena that are ostensibly under scrutiny (Williams, 2005, p. 240). Third, sociocultural psychologists object to the framing of psychological entities and phenomena (particularly patterns of human activity and subjectivity) as timeless, relatively static, decontextualized objects whose nature and deep structure can be pinned down once and for all (Danziger, 1990, 1997). Instead, they seek to study the interwoven subjects and objects of psychology as constituted within the flux of history, culture, and relationships. Rather than the prediction and control of behavior, or the parsing and cataloguing of universal, ahistorical natural kinds, the aims of such sociocultural approaches can

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best be articulated as the achievement of the capacity to communicate with those under study and to participate in their ritualized and improvised activities. It would be hard to deny that psychologys fetishistic obsession with method (narrowly and parochially defined) has, if anything, broadened in reach in recent years (witness, for example, the increased insistence in the United States on empirically supported psychotherapeutic treatments). Not only does empiricist research continue to dominate social, developmental, and applied areas of psychology, but neuroscientific and biobehavioral approaches in psychology and psychiatry have also been garnering evergreater authority and resources. Yet even while acknowledging the enduring power and dominance of such scientism, it is important to draw attention to the continuing development of sociocultural perspectives. As has been noted, they have made particular strides in addressing questions about agency, resistance, and innovation, and in responding to accusations of moral relativism and incitements to accord a more prominent role to human embodiment. Moreover, over the past two decades, the number of journals that publish this type of work on a regular basis has increased. They now include not only Theory & Psychology and the APAs Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, but also such forums as Culture & Psychology, Mind, Culture & Activity, Narrative Inquiry, the International Journal of Dialogical Psychology, and Subjectivity.4 The ongoing development of constitutive sociocultural psychologies, even in the face of hegemonic counter-trends, signals the commitment of sociocultural theorists to preserving and elaborating upon these visions. Perhaps even more importantly, it evinces an awareness, detectable in the subjectivities of many students, academics, clinicians, and members of the lay public, that there exists dissatisfaction with the images of human being and sociality provided by empiricist and materialist approaches, along with a potential receptivity to alternative or supplementary visions (Kirschner, 2006; E. Martin, 2000). While neuroscience and related fields promise to advance knowledge of our embodied existence in unprecedented ways, and to contribute to human comfort and betterment, they remain vulnerable to the types of criticisms already noted, which fault psychologys decontextualization, methodolatry, determinism, and narrowing of the range of available metaphors for depicting what it means to be human. In particular, the ascendance of neuroscientific and biobehavioral approaches evokes concerns about the effects of this neurobiological turn on sociopolitical institutions and practices, as well as on how humans think about themselves and others (Kirschner, 2009; E. Martin, 2000). The biological turn also threatens to further limit the self-awareness of psychologists that theirs is a historically and socioculturally embedded enterprise (Harrington, Deacon, Kosslyn, & Scarry, 2001). It is important to point out that, despite their potential effectiveness in redressing such concerns, sociocultural psychologies are not, finally, incompatible with

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materialism. Most of the approaches included under the socioculturalist rubric are premised on the assumption that biological nature is necessary for human being and activity in the world (though those that draw on Foucault, Butler, and the like would likely not equate subjectivity with an embodied individual). Some of us (this writer included) would consider ourselves to be materialists, even while contending that sociocultural psychology is incompatible with any kind of thoroughgoing neuroreductionism. Moreover although not all constitutive sociocultural psychologists might concur on this pointI would argue that a unified theory of psychology, in which the sociocultural constitution of selfhood is framed as an emergent level of an allencompassing biosocial reality, would likewise not be a felicitous move.5 In addition to psychologists, their students, and the lay public, another potential audience for these sociocultural psychologies can be found among social and cultural anthropologists and cultural studies scholars. After a long period during which the experiential aspects of subjectivity were downplayed in these disciplines, owing to the influence of theorists such as Foucault and Bourdieu, there is now a renewal of interest in theorizing a socioculturally constituted subjectivity (Biehl et al., 2007; Blackman, Cromby, Hook, Papadopoulos, & Walkerdine, 2008; Fox Keller, 2007; Ortner, 2005). Thus, this is an opportune moment to draw the attention of our disciplinary neighbors to the intellectual and methodological resources that sociocultural psychology has to offer. Are Constitutive Sociocultural Images of the Subject Oversocialized? The first part this essay has been devoted to emphasizing the value of these approaches and the importance of further legitimizing them both within and outside of psychology. The remainder is focused on a limitation that has yet to be redressed. Ironically, this limitation has to do with that very elision of subject and object that is also perhaps sociocultural approaches greatest corrective contribution to the question of how psychologists should frame the phenomena they study. The problem is that the metaphor of the severed subject is polysemous, signifying not only the isolated Cartesian cogito of which psychology would likely be well rid, but also a much broader family of religious and secular Judaeo-Christian traditions (Kirschner, 1996). These spiritual and intellectual tropes encode in the gulf between subject and object, and between self and other(ness), the conflict and disharmony that exist within and between human beings and between humans and nature (Kirschner, 2003a, 2003b). In other words, subject-object dualism stands not only for an ontologically and temporally decontextualized subject, but also for both inescapable and contingent suffering as well as for what Hobbes (1647/1998) called the war of all against all (p. 30). As another Hobbesian wrote: We

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are threatened with suffering from three directions: from our own body .... from the external world ... and finally from our relations to other men [sic]. He added: The suffering that comes from this cause is perhaps more painful than any other. ... it cannot be any less fatefully inevitable than the suffering which comes from elsewhere (Freud, 1929/1961, p. 26). Here, in Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud used the phrase suffering ... from our relations to other men to refer, at the very least, to the ways other human beings disappoint and frustrate us (and we them), to the pain of loss and abandonment, and to the inevitability of unfulfilled longing and desire (in my view, this includes desires for particular people, things and goals, as well as Desire in a more abstract, infinite, object-less sense). He was also referring to the ambivalence and guilt that many of us suffer as a consequence of our own desire and aggression, no matter whether the damage we inflict is intentional, unintentional, or even just merely wished for (and feared as well) in fantasy. And, last but not least, he used this phrase to index the inevitable aggression, conflict, and competition (for all manner of material and symbolic resources) that inhere in even the most close and loving of relationships and thus, concomitantly, the conflicts, ambivalence, and compromises of which subjectivity and its dynamics are unavoidably comprised. One need not frame such inner/ outer splits and conflicts in the exact vocabulary of Freuds metapsychology to appreciate that they are, in some version, inescapable. Likewise, one need not subscribe to Freuds theory of the etiology of aggression to concede its inevitability. A complete theory of sociality, and of the constitution of the subjectivities that emerge from it, thus needs to allocate a large space for these tragic and conflictual elements, and for the interplay of antagonism and attunement. This is because how we are with one another, along with what and how we are with ourselves, embodies, replicates, responds to, and reacts against these existential and social facts. Yet many of the most impressive and developed sociocultural psychologies draw heavily from seminal philosophical and theoretical traditions that do not fully embody this vision. The traditions to which I refer are ontological hermeneutics (Gadamer, Taylor), Habermasian critical theory and some other neo-Marxist approaches, symbolic interactionism (Mead), and analytic philosophy (Wittgenstein, Ryle). As varied as these strains of influence are, and as diverse as are their intellectual progenitors, they tend to lead to one or a combination of the following three ideal-typical approaches to subjectivity. The first approach frames sociocultural subjectivity in terms of the human tendency towards social coordination and attunement. Thus, for example, ontological hermeneutics depicts a harmonized subject, which emerges out of horizons of cultural narratives and practices as a relatively uncomplicated, if often (for better and for worse) imperfectly accomplished, achievement.6 A second approach (most visibly influenced by analytic philosophy and symbolic interactionism) socializes cognition, and sociocognizes emotion, through an emphasis on subjects practical

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coordination with one another (coordinating moves that can be framed in terms of either attuning or strategic tendencies, or both, and thus need not entail an assumption that subjects possess an interiorized understanding of each others inner lives). Some versions of this second ideal-typical approach pay a good deal of attention to microsocial struggles over power; however, even in such accounts, the subject itself is implicitly portrayed as not particularly divided or ambivalent, but rather as a strategist, rationalist, and rationalizer. A third approach, in which one can detect not only the influence of Mead, but also that of Habermas or other post-Marxist theorists, emphasizes the potential of selves and societies to develop symbiotically in the direction of more rational and democratic forms of life that are grounded in the human capacity for agency and collaborative action. Human interactivity and subjectivity surely do embody the qualities and potentials highlighted in these three ideal-typical accounts, and in their variations and combinations. The critique of the autonomously constituted subject, and the alternatives offered by sociocultural theorists, offer much-needed antidotes to the epistemological and ethical myopia that has pervaded so much of psychology. But it is also important not to lose sight of the ineradicably divisive dynamics that characterize both inter- and intra-subjective being. In other words, the need to correct a decontextualized and overly interiorized vision of subjectivity doesnt let us off the hook regarding the other meanings of the subject-object split noted to in this section. The difficulty is somewhat analogous to the sociologist Dennis Wrongs contention, many years ago, that just because material interests, sexual drives, and a quest for power have been overestimated as human motives is no reason to deny their reality (Wrong, 1961/1999, p. 42). In this paper, The Oversocialized Conception of Man, Wrong argued that the then-dominant Parsonian account of social life distorted human nature because it omitted the essential tension between presocial individual desires and motives, and the civilized social order. I challenge all of us who have been engaged in efforts to make psychology a more fully and deeply sociocultural discipline to heed the spirit, if not the letter, of Wrongs critique.7 Recent and contemporary constitutive sociocultural approaches are very different from the functionalist sociology that Wrong decried, not least because, as has been noted, most of them have affinities with, and have largely grown out of, projects of sociopolitical critique. Yet despite these differences, his concerns are not without relevance today. Wrongs exhortation to sociologists that their theories should not elide the cleavages, tensions, and ambivalences that characterize human existence is thus at least as important for us psychologists to heed, as we move toward making our accounts of subjectivity, activity, and personhood more fully and adequately social. There is, of course, a fourth ideal type of socioculturally constituted subjectivity that has not yet been mentioned here. By now, some readers are surely wondering about the omission of a family of approaches that are both

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sociocultural and psychoanalytic (Butler, 1997; Kristeva, 1980/1982; Malone, 2000), since they might help solve the problem I have underscored. Descended partly from Durkheimian social theory, as well as from later structuralism and poststructuralism, such approaches offer a way of framing the sociocultural constitution of subjectivity while also highlighting the tragedies, losses, and divisions inherent in its formation. Durkheim himself (1960) was well aware of the violence and constraint inherent in the formation of the person and of the ways that self and society depend upon, and even bring into being, their Others in order to construct and sustain their boundaries and stability. But he tended, nonetheless, to accentuate the positive. Later structuralist and poststructuralist theorists have exhibited notably greater ambivalence about the effects of such structuration. In this admittedly diverse group of accounts, the subject that is brought into existence through (in a Lacanian version) successive moments of differentiation, self-objectification, and entry into the symbolic and sociomoral order has alienation, constraint, and loss built into its very constitution, even as it derives some comfort and consolation from the (imperfect) experiences of stability and unity thereby accrued. The boundaries and limits set by the symbolic order leave remainders and invite indeed, necessitatetransgression, both within the subject and without. Yet even such transgressive desires and identities are accessible to the subject only in ways conditioned by the sociocultural context to which it is subjected. Such a rendering of the nature and dynamics of an ever-alienated, everdivided, ever-desiring subjectivity offers a powerful metaphor for at least some of the tragedies of the human condition. But does it fully eliminate the limitations noted here? Before concluding that this family of psychoanalytic structuralisms and poststructuralisms offers a way out of the dilemmas I have highlighted, one would do well to consider some concerns raised by its critics. Perhaps the most serious complaint, voiced by both psychoanalytic (Olinor, 1988) and anti-psychoanalytic (Webster, 2002) commentators, is that while this might not be an oversocialized image of human beings, it does risk being a rather solipsistic one. Although such approaches frame the vicissitudes of human existence in terms of multiple levels of inevitable rupture and estrangement, the two tragedies that are deemed most decisive dont seem to have much to do with specific human beings concrete engagement with one another. Rather, they have to do with the alienation that is intrinsic to the selfs sense of wholeness (e.g., Lacans mirror stage), and with the constraint, inauthenticity, and melancholia (Butler, 1997) that are inherent in the emergence of subjectivity out of a linguistic and sociopolitical matrix. In foregrounding these primordial ruptures, it is easy to give short shrift to the particulars of the individual subjects relationships, history, and emotional experience, as these are lived and felt (Luhrmann, 2006; Ortner, 2005). Of course, such particulars are also historically and socioculturally infused phenomena, but the specific and even unique ways that they unfold (and are

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experienced and reacted to) are no less consequential for that, and certainly no less deserving of sociocultural theorists (and psychotherapists) attention. Another, similar concern is that Lacanian psychoanalysis seems to evince what Marion Olinor (1988) calls a disdain for affect (p. 119). Earlier, I implied that at least some non-psychodynamic sociocultural approaches tend to reframe emotional qualia in social-cognitive or cultural-linguistic terms. Such moves are often made for the purpose of undoing conventionally theorized bifurcations such as those between reason and emotion, and between relationship or culture and experience. However, a typical result is that the emotional or affective or feeling side is more or less overtaken by the cognitive and sociocultural sides. One would hope that psychoanalytic theories, whatever their weaknesses or limitations, would at least have the virtue of bringing to our attention the extent to which subjectivity is not (nor can it ever be) simply about some kind of rationality. Yet, in the case of Lacanian theory, there seems to be a parallel dismissal of affectnot in favor of rationality per se, but rather in order to assert the primacy of the (already structured and alienated) unconscious. Emotion and feeling are, presumably, regarded as screenlike phenomena, which obfuscate unconscious depths. As is the case with the other sociocultural psychologies discussed here, not all psychoanalytic structuralisms are equally vulnerable to this criticism. Moreover, as a general attitude, such a hermeneutics of suspicion (a hallmark of classical analysis, too) can indeed serve to illuminate repudiated motives and conflicts. But just as I have voiced concern about psychoanalytic structuralists and poststructuralists moving too far away from concrete human relationships from the range of ways that human beings can and do engage with and respond to one anotherso, too, I consider depictions of subjectivity to be incomplete when they treat emotions and emotional experience as phenomena to be boiled down to, or re-described as, something else (be that something else unconscious fantasies, cultural artifacts, strategic vocabularies of motive, effects of power, performative acts, or various other re-framings). Thusto put it bluntlysociocultural psychologies of many kinds run the risk of presenting not only an oversocialized (or, in the case of the fourth ideal type, underengaged) image of man, but also an overly intellectualized one. It is important to make clear here that in criticizing this situation, I am not thereby endorsing the common default move of looking to contemporary neurobiology or evolutionary theory to enlighten us about the deep structure of emotion and motivation. Rather, what I would like to see is no kind of reductionism at all.8 I hope that in future work we theoretical psychologists can constructively engage with the paradox suggested in this essay. We need to continue to develop and promote models of a socioculturally constituted subject that is not reducible to a prior-to-society or neurological essence. Yet we need our models also to honor the irreducibility of forms of human engagement, and of emotional experience and motivation, that can only be described in terms

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of the ways that our selves are both pained and enriched by inter- and intrapersonal separation, division, and conflict.

Notes 1. As the anthropologist Geoffrey White (1991) once wrote of the self, the terms subject and subjectivity are at once intractable and indispensable (p. 33). There is a voluminous literature on subjectivity, which contains intricate and sometimes tangled debates on a number of matters, including whether subject and subjectivity should be used to refer to the same or different things, and whether subjectivity should refer only to processes of awareness and self-awareness, or could also include processes that psychoanalysts deem unconscious. For this essay, I assume the position taken in a recent essay on subjectivity by the anthropologists Biehl, Good, and Kleinman (2007): no single analytic framework can fully account for the inner lives of people and the intersubjective relations in a local world. We did not begin with a genealogy or definition of the terms subject or subjectivity. ... Rather, we took as the objects of our inquiry the contingency of subjectivity and the openness of the terms meaning today. (p. 15) 2. In this paper I consider mainly approaches that focus on the dynamics and development of the self and social life rather than cognitive processes. There is also an extensive literature that deals with cognition as a socioculturally constituted phenomenon (see, e.g., Osbeck, 2009). 3. With regard to the latter: contrast, for example, Gergens (2009) assertion that claims to mental states arise out of relational configurations, with analyses that highlight the pragmatic and indexical functions of linguistic utterances but retain interiorized subjectivity as a focus of study (e.g., E. Martin, 2007; Shotter, 2010). 4. See Kirschner & Martin (2010) for additional discussion of the institutional presence of these approaches. 5. For an argument in favor of the psychological studies, which would include a number of incommensurable approaches, including some that are neuroscientific and others that are sociocultural and interpretive (broadly conceived), see Kirschner (2006). 6. For a discussion and critique of hermeneuticists overemphasis on attunement, see Connolly (1987). 7. One of the most promising directions for such an agonistic account of subjectivity can be found in some of the recent work in dialogical psychology, particularly those projects that study postcolonial subjectivities in order to explore and theorize the multiplicity and complexity of the subjects relationships to others and to its own subjectivities (see, e.g., Bhatia, 2002, 2007; Hermans & HermansKonopka, 2010). Kareen Ror Malone (personal communication, February 27, 2010) has also pointed out the fruitfulness of studying postcolonial subjectivities for this general purpose. 8. Shotter (2003, 2010) offers a compelling non-reductionist account of sociocultural interactivity and subjectivity.

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