Emotion Discourse ‘Speaks’ of Involvement: Commentary on Edwards

Abstract

Edwards’ (1999) paper is taken as an invitation to reflect on core issues that seem relatively overlooked in the current construction of cultural psychology. Our main focus is the critical analysis of an assumption at the basis of Edwards’ discursive psychology (the essential equivalence between scientific and everyday descriptions, accounts, etc.). On the way we find that other issues must be addressed as well: the nature of social action, the reproduction and transformation of social practices, and the role of agents in those processes. Then, in broad outline, we suggest a way of addressing the complexity of the problems involved and a possible complementary relationship between discursive and cultural psychology.