Self In Relation Research Articles

Disputed Boundaries of the Self, the Group, and their Environment: What We Learn from Refugees about our Psychic Functioning1.

One of Jung's most significant contributions concerns the mysterious, inexplicable and always out-of-reach nature of the self. In this paper, I will focus on the borders of the self and their nature, location and dynamics of maintenance and change in geographically, historically, and culturally situated subjects. Reflecting on the refugee experience, I intendto gain more insights into our psychic functioning and the dynamics of the self in relation to itself, the other and groups. The experiences of some refugees, marked bysignificant trauma and migration, shed light on how the boundaries of the self are frequently contested and perpetually negotiated with others, and how our subjectivity is shaped by ongoing dynamics of occupation, dispute and/or negotiation, conducted at various levels of our social and individual existence. My argument is that these processes occur at a specific site:the boundaries of the self, involving intrapsychic, interpersonal and group psychological dynamics, with reverberations in the socio-political and cultural spheres, and reciprocal influences between all these levels. This paper aims to concentrate on the shifts in these boundaries, illustrated through clinical vignettes.

Why We Need Diverse Methods for Assessing Cultural Identity: Introduction to the Special Issue

In this introduction to the special issue on diverse methods for cultural identity, we begin by addressing the evolving complexities of defining oneself amidst modern globalization and immigration. We then preview the current collection of papers, which collectively showcase the complexity of cultural identity by exploring how people, especially adolescents and young adults, navigate a plethora of cultural influences—whether through direct migration or the pervasive impact of global cultures—as they psychologically manage diverse and sometimes conflicting allegiances and worldviews. The studies featured in this issue employ a range of methodologies, from qualitative analyses to mixed-methods approaches, to expand our knowledge of the constitution of contemporary cultural identities beyond common quantitative metrics of self-categorization and group belongingness. For instance, research on Jamaican American adolescents highlights how cultural identity is formed through reciprocal socialization processes and systemic factors such as racism. Similarly, studies involving Hmong American youth and Guatemalan adolescents reveal tensions and creative harmonizations in identity management, challenging notions of a homogenized global culture. We conclude by underscoring the need for future research to take a nuanced, intersectional approach to the study of cultural identity, to explore creative measurement tools that are sensitive to local meaning-making among diverse groups around the world, and to attend to the impact of power dynamics in shaping one’s sense of self in relation to their cultural group(s).

Candidacy 2.0 (CC) – an enhanced theory of access to healthcare for chronic conditions: lessons from a critical interpretive synthesis on access to rheumatoid arthritis care

BackgroundThe Dixon-Woods et al. Candidacy Framework, a valuable tool since its 2006 introduction, has been widely utilized to analyze access to various services in diverse contexts, including healthcare. This social constructionist approach examines micro, meso, and macro influences on access, offering concrete explanations for access challenges rooted in socially patterned influences. This study employed the Candidacy Framework to explore the experiences of individuals living with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and their formal care providers. The investigation extended to assessing supports and innovations in RA diagnosis and management, particularly in primary care.MethodsThis systematic review is a Critical Interpretive Synthesis (CIS) of qualitative and mixed methods literature. The CIS aimed to generate theory from identified constructs across the reviewed literature. The study found alignment between the seven dimensions of the Candidacy Framework and key themes emerging from the data. Notably absent from the framework was an eighth dimension, identified as the “embodied relational self.” This dimension, central to the model, prompted the proposal of a revised framework specific to healthcare for chronic conditions.ResultsThe CIS revealed that the eight dimensions, including the embodied relational self, provided a comprehensive understanding of the experiences and perspectives of individuals with RA and their care providers. The proposed Candidacy 2.0 (Chronic Condition (CC)) model demonstrated how integrating approaches like Intersectionality, concordance, and recursivity enhanced the framework when the embodied self was central.ConclusionsThe study concludes that while the original Candidacy Framework serves as a robust foundation, a revised version, Candidacy 2.0 (CC), is warranted for chronic conditions. The addition of the embodied relational self dimension enriches the model, accommodating the complexities of accessing healthcare for chronic conditions.Trial RegistrationThis study did not involve a health care intervention on human participants, and as such, trial registration is not applicable. However, our review is registered with the Open Science Framework at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/ASX5C.

Entanglements of Technologies, Agency and Selfhood: Exploring the Complexity in Attitudes Toward Mental Health Chatbots.

Whilst chatbots for mental health are becoming increasingly prevalent, research on user experiences and expectations is relatively scarce and also equivocal on their acceptability and utility. This paper asks how people formulate their understandings of what might be appropriate in this space. We draw on data from a group of non-users who have experienced a need for support, and so can imagine self as therapeutic target-enabling us to tap into their imaginative speculations of the self in relation to the chatbot other and the forms of agency they see as being at play; unconstrained by a specific actual chatbot. Analysis points towards ambiguity over some key issues: whether the apps were seen as having a role in specific episodes of mental health or in relation to an ongoing project of supporting wellbeing; whether the chatbot could be viewed as having a therapeutic agency or was a mere tool; and how far these issues related to matters of the user's personal qualities or the specific nature of the mental health condition. A range of traditions, norms and practices were used to construct diverse expectations on whether chatbots could offer a solution to cost-effective mental health support at scale.

Civilizational Identity and the Identity Politics Agenda: Russian Priorities in a Transforming World Order

The author offers a brief overview of the field of identity studies in political research with a focus on the significance of civilizational identity as a key concept relevant for evaluating the dynamics of political identity and the priorities of political agenda setting in a radically transforming world. The paper outlines a conceptual framework for understanding civilizational identity and assesses its role in forming the discursive power of the state and in promoting a development policy agenda. This agenda is activated by identity politics promoted by the state and other political actors to construct and uphold an array of politically significant identities which are important for social cohesion and for implementing national development goals. Correlating tradition and innovation in the social sphere is an important priority for consistent development policies. Russia has longstanding traditions of promoting a civilizational discourse reflecting her place in the Christian world and in the dialogue of cultures and civilizations, with a focus on the pivotal role of the state in social development. The research methodology is based on approaches developed in the field of identity studies. These include both the assessment of identity transformations as changing notions of the self in relation to politics in a fluid social and political environment and the implications these perceptions of societal realities have for current social policies and for promoting political change.

Leader generosity and employee knowledge sharing: an episodic perspective of generalized reciprocity

PurposeDespite the acknowledgment of the significant role leaders play in knowledge management, there has been limited focus on the dynamic relationship between one particular leader’s behavior and knowledge sharing of employees. This study aims to investigate the impact of leader generosity on employee knowledge sharing.Design/methodology/approachDrawing upon the generalized reciprocity theory, we develop a process model that examines the impact of leader generosity on knowledge sharing, and empirically tests the resulting mechanism. Based on event-contingent ESM that collected 1147 episodic data points, the data are analyzed by Mplus 8.30 and R software.FindingsThe findings indicate that employee gratitude and prosocial motivation respectively play a mediating role in the relationship between leader generosity and knowledge sharing. Additionally, leader generosity has an indirect impact on knowledge sharing via employee gratitude and prosocial motivation. Furthermore, relational self positively moderates the relationship between leader generosity and employee gratitude, while also moderates the chain mediation effect between leader generosity and knowledge sharing.Originality/valueBy exploring the important influence of leaders in implementing knowledge management practices, the authors demonstrate that a specific leader behavior (i.e. leader generosity) shapes the positive emotion and reciprocal motivation of employees and its subsequent impact on knowledge sharing. This paper complements the focus on knowledge sharing in the daily behavior literature of leaders, suggesting that leader generosity matters for employee knowledge sharing.

Recipe for Identity

The placement of recipes in a food memoir serves the unique function of contextualising a life story against culture, tradition, and history. They serve as a form of self-expression that looks at life in its entirety through an amalgamation of the material and abstract aspects of existence. For women in the diaspora, recipes not only enable them to maintain a link to the homeland through the preservation and perpetuation of foodways but also serve as a medium to adapt to the new country. Bengali-American historian and writer Chitrita Banerji’s A Taste of My Life: A Memoir in Essays and Recipes (2021) is structured as a three-course meal and uses recipes to frame liminal moments of existence. The food memoir traces the arc of Banerji’s life over seven decades—from her childhood in India, to her student life in the US, followed by married life in Bangladesh and culminates with her mature years spent dividing her time between the US and India. Banerji reconstructs her life through the food that has defined her with the recipes providing a structure for her transnational life that spans years and continents; they provide unity and coherence across space and time. This paper argues that the inclusion of recipes helps Banerji in constructing an identity that takes the whole gamut of her experiences into account. The recipes show her journey from dislocation to relocation and provide the scaffolding for the construction of a self that is reconciled and empowered. Banerji’s recipes articulate the way in which food anchors her, provides the impetus for her growth and gives her the means to reflect on life with a certain resolve tempered with a hint of nostalgia. Through her narrative we see how a recipe borrows as well as adapts, preserves as well as modifies. There is replication as well as recreation in a recipe, which is similar to a diaspora individual balancing assimilation with adaptation. Every recipe reveals a new facet of her identity and is crucial in her understanding of the self in relation to others.

Breathing together: Needed relationships and complex selfobjects

ABSTRACT In this paper the author extends his metatheory of needed relationships to posit a more complex form of selfobject connection than has been previously theorized. He argues that there are degrees of selfobject connectedness and that for the fullest, most transformative connection to be actualized certain conditions in the patient’s experience of the analyst need to be met. The co-creation of such conditions amounts to a new needed relationship—a transformational intersubjective medium—uniquely co-created and unpredictably emergent within each analytic dyad, which somehow comes to address a traumatic relational breach in the original parent-child field and restores an ethic of care, lawfulness, competence and love that was the patient’s original birthright. This amounts to a fully relational self psychology, but a more forward edge relationality than that of mainstream Relational theory, which, at least historically, has placed more emphasis on repetition and enactment than on what the author calls the needed relationship.

Embodied Relationality and Alterity in Verena Stefan’s Fremdschläfer

This article explores Verena Stefan’s images of non-oppositional relationality, relations between the self and other beings in the world, and Leib, the living body in her 2007 novel Fremdschläfer which is presented as an assemblage of sections with little temporal and spatial continuity. I examine relationality with reference to a nexus of ontological questions pertaining to non-oppositional models of relational selfhood, alterity and immanence and the relation between empirical experience and the conditions of experience. My analysis of the multilayered imagery in Fremdschläfer focuses on how these poetic images engender self-world relationality, being together with others, heteronomy and intersubjectivity, while also foregrounding the experience of immigration, multilingualism and living with a poor medical prognosis. I argue that Stefan figures the Leib (living body) as a sensible transcendental. It is the touch of and embodied listening by other material embodied selves that give shape to the self’s changing boundaries.

Relational self and farmworker law reform: the case of Indonesia

This article celebrates and explores Keebet Benda-Beckmann’s important work on the centrality of “relationality” in legal pluralism, in Indonesia in particular, and more generally in the non-Western world. We aim to extend Benda-Beckmann’s argument on the centrality of relationality and legal pluralism into our analysis of an urgent project of Indonesian law reform: farmworker protection. We make an interpretive claim on the status of “relational self” as an organizing idea in the Indonesian legal consciousness. To build that interpretive claim, we provide qualitative context drawn from our field research in two farmworker communities in rural West Java, Indonesia. With the situation of Indonesian farmworkers as its case study, this paper presents how relational self-construal can be a starting point for the introduction of a greater access to justice. To build its argument, the paper first identifies relational self as the Indonesian farmworkers’ central notion of self. Ultimately, the paper develops a model of law reform proposal that takes relational self as its overarching supposition.

대안 발전으로서의 사이 철학

Purpose: This research aims to explore the potential of alternative development philosophy through the concept of Interbeing and apply this to international development cooperation to suggest a new direction. Originality: This research contributes to the self-reflection of Korean international development cooperation and proposes a new development model that addresses the limitations of existing development models. Methodology: This research conducts a comparative analysis of the philosophical concepts of Interbeing as articulated by Lee Ki-Sang and Martin Buber. It aims to establish a clear definition of the concept of Interbeing philosophy and apply it to the field of international development cooperation. Result: This research identifies the key characteristics of the Interbeing philosophy as multi-layered interactions, relational self, harmony, and mutual dependency. These elements underscore the necessity of incorporating the Interbeing philosophy into international development cooperation. Conclusion and Implication: This research concludes with an alternative development approach through the philosophy of Interbeing. This approach emphasizes harmonious relationships between humans and nature, as well as between humans themselves, aiming for sustainable development that overcomes the limitations of existing development models.

INDIVIDUAL SPONTANEITY AND THE POSSIBILITY OF COMMUNITY IN MEAD’S SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

The central question of the present study is how to understand the spontaneity of the social self in George H. Mead’s account of the genesis and structure of the self. Its argument develops in three stages. First, I provide a brief discussion of the notion of the self in relation to social existence in Hegel in order to highlight some salient features that will prefigure some of the claims that Mead makes. Second, I discuss Mead’s theory in greater detail in order to emphasize the role of communication and ‘attitude-taking’ in the constitution of the self. These factors comprise what is particularly original in Mead’s account. Finally, I offer an evaluation of Mead’s key claims in the context of certain questions concerning the relationship between the individual and community. I think that Mead provides a sound scheme by means of which we can understand the constitution of the self as a social phenomenon and communities as dynamic systems susceptible to transformation in response to individual and/or group action, i.e., without reifying communities. However, the dynamics of social change, for the most part in terms of ‘adaptation’ in Mead’s account, needs some modification, if we want to understand those periods of social upheaval during which the continuity between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ seems minimal.

Armenia Post-2020: From the Bridge to the Hub?

ABSTRACT This article delves into the impact of the 2020 war against Azerbaijan on Armenia’s agency as an in-between country, using the lens of liminality and ontological (in)security. The study uncovers shifts in the articulation of the liminal Self in relation to the EU and Russian Others and how it is framed as a source of agency in foreign policy discourse in the aftermath of the 44-day war. It is argued that there has been a shift from potential agency as a bridge to constrained agency as a hub in Armenia due to a rupture of the ontological security narrative.

Emotion and the Female Self: Finding Space for Expression

Abstract The expression of emotions, including desire and anger, is culturally encoded, being accepted – or not – depending on factors including social class and gender. In the twelfth century, while the public expression of anger was generally seen as negative, it was deemed acceptable when kings or other aristocratic men used anger as a corrective to a perceived wrong. This public utterance of anger can be seen as an expression of selfhood, of rendering exterior the emotional experience of the interior self. Yet the insular Romance of Horn diverges from this socially gendered behaviour when the princess Rigmel expresses her anger publicly. An analysis of the gendered space of the narrative allows for an understanding of how Rigmel’s anger may be appropriate in the specific context of the scene and what this shows about the expression of female selfhood in relation to her more furtive and private expressions of desire.

Life histories in Fiji as reconstructed from first millennium CE Sigatoka Sand Dune burials using isotopes

This paper aims to re-examine the dietary practices of individuals buried at Sigatoka Sand Dunes site (Fiji) in Burial Ground 1 excavated by Simon Best in 1987 and 1988 using two approaches and a reassessment of their archaeological, bioarchaeological and chronological frame. First, stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis was applied to document dietary changes between childhood and adulthood using an intra–individual approach on paired bone–tooth. Second, the potential adaptation of the individuals to their environment was evaluated through regional and temporal comparisons using inter–individual bone analysis. Ten AMS radiocarbon dates were measured directly on human bone collagen samples, placing the series in a range of approximately 600 years covering the middle of the first millennium CE (1,888 to 1,272 cal BP).δ13C andδ15N ratios were measured on bone and tooth collagen samples from 38 adult individuals. The results show thatδ15N values from tooth are higher than those s from bone while bone and toothδ13C values are similar, except for females. Fifteen individuals were included in an intra–individual analysis based on paired bone and tooth samples, which revealed six dietary patterns distinguished by a differential dietary intake of marine resources and resources at different trophic levels. These highlight sex–specific differences not related to mortuary practices but to daily life activities, supporting the hypothesis of a sexual division of labour. Compared to other Southwest Pacific series, Sigatoka diets show a specific trend towards marine food consumption that supports the hypothesis of a relative food self–sufficiency requiring no interactions with other groups.

“They were too fragile”: questioning feminist resilience in Russian Doll

ABSTRACT A significant number of half-hour comedy-dramas led by resilient (yet precarious – see Wanzo, 2016) women have sprung up on US TV in the past years. Some of the most recent examples of such programmes have situated their female leads within time loops and parallel universes, such as Undone (Amazon Prime Video, 2019–2022), Russian Doll (Netflix, 2019–2022), and Slip (The Roku Channel, 2023—). Therefore, this article will explore how the fluctuating meaning and the role of individual resilience in the context of neoliberal feminism is articulated through the time loop trope in women-centric television. In addition to capturing the overwhelm of managing the self and navigating around neoliberal life trajectories in times of crisis, Russian Doll allows us to see a form of resilient resistance that favours community over individualism and relational selves over sovereign selves (McRobbie, 2020). This article will engage with scholarship on the resilient, bounce-backable (Orgad and Gill, 2018) woman in contemporary television (for example, Gorton, 2021) to contextualize televisual renderings of the work that goes into resilient self-management. Russian Doll exemplifies the current televisual tendency to render resilient feminist subjects in a way that draws attention to and questions the merits and meaning of resilience.

Future past tense of abusive supervision: a narrative inquiry

PurposeThe purpose of this research is to examine the narratives of victims of abusive supervision. We explore the meaning or “lessons” victims derive from those experiences and how they shape the victims’ views of self, work and organization in relation to navigating their subsequent jobs.Design/methodology/approachWe analyzed how appraisals of supervisory abuse transform victims’ narratives and their consequent work attitudes through sensemaking processes. Semi-structured interviews with the past victims of abusive supervision generated a four-stage model of how sensemaking shapes victims’ future work attitudes. Our interpretations were guided through narrative thematic analysis based on the constructionist approach.FindingsVictims’ lessons learned are predominantly framed by their retrospective post-event appraisal of abuse (based on its severity) once individuals are no longer subject to abusive supervision. With greater distance from the abuse, victims can process the abuse and better understand the motivation of the abuser, enabling the process of causal attributions. These attributions further shape victims’ narratives and future work attitudes through a complex interplay of retrospective and prospective sensemaking mechanisms. The victims broadly reported proactive (with higher self-awareness and endurance) and reactive (self-protection, and emotional scars) lessons. A four-stage model was proposed based on our findings.Originality/valueAbusive supervision remains a persistent issue experienced by many individuals at some point in their working life. However, little is known about how victims make sense of the event post-abuse and how this sense-making guides their future work behaviors. Understanding this phenomenon provides insight into how employees navigate through adversity and construct a more positive future. The contribution of this narrative inquiry is threefold. First, it explores how individual appraisals of supervisory abuse frame their (1) mechanisms of narrative construction; and (2) future work attitudes. Second, our findings demonstrate how narrative construction is a fluid process often informed by the process of retrospective and prospective sensemaking. Finally, our research suggests two broader categories of lessons that victims internalize and carry forward to their subsequent jobs.

“People need to be valued because of who they are”: Self-conception and strategies of resistance in women who challenge weight-loss diet culture

This paper explores how the self-beliefs of women who have rejected weight-loss diet culture inform their strategies of resistance. We conducted a qualitative survey inviting participants to share methods they have used to challenge diet culture. One hundred and twelve women ( Mage = 37.01, SD = 10.54) provided complete responses. Most were heterosexual (72%) and resided in Australia (59%). Our thematic analysis generated two themes: “diet culture is internalised, dismantling it is personal,” which was characterised by participants’ self-beliefs or self-identification, and the personal strategies they used to counter diet culture; and “diet culture is social, relationships are sites of resistance,” which reflected participants’ beliefs about the source of personal worth, as well as relational strategies they enacted in their personal and professional lives, and in their interactions with authority figures. Efforts to assist women in challenging diet culture could be strengthened by recognising the implications of immersion in such a culture for an individual's relational self and their perceptions of self-worth, and by harnessing the power of women's relationships with each other. This paper contributes to the feminist psychological literature on women's inequalities and their relationships with food and their bodies, illuminating connections between activism, healthcare, and everyday experience.

The Subject of Human Rights: From the Unencumbered Self to the Relational Self

ABSTRACT The divisive character of a large part of identity politics creates enormous challenges which have yet to be satisfactorily engaged with from within human rights circles. This article addresses an area of human rights theory and practice that is in urgent need of critical attention: the prevailing human-rights-based response to identity politics, namely recognition rights that eschew social class. I shall argue that human rights has vitally important contributions to make to protecting those who are vulnerable because of their self-affirmed or imposed identities. However, I shall also argue that human rights’ engagement with identity politics is significantly limited in key areas. Human rights remains deeply influenced by an overly individualist ideal of the individual rights holder, which limits its ability to effectively engage with what I see as a key challenge of our age: identity politics wielded in divisive ways. I shall argue that what is largely missing from human rights’ engagement with identity politics is an understanding of the subject of rights as relational. I will consider specific aspects of this failure to engage with the constitutive relationality of human agency and identity, before proceeding to outline three areas in which an acknowledgement of relationality can contribute to human rights incorporating identity politics in a more effective way. My article asks the human rights community to radically rethink and begin to reshape its efforts to engage with the challenge of identity.

Literature at the frontier of our commonwealth

Taking as its starting point the most recent, failed Australian referendum, this essay considers the efficacy of the Commonwealth of Nations — of the attendant ideological principles and values upon which the political association is based and to which its member states subscribe. Tracing the colonial histories and legacies of two current member states, Australia and South Africa — nations whose genesis in settler colonialism follow somewhat similar contours — the essay explores, in their canonical literature, the evolution of a kind of whitewashed nationalism that is not just racially exclusory but also registers, inversely, the anxieties of the self in relation to the “imagined community” (Anderson, 1983) endorsed in ideologies of nationhood. In a comparative, transnational reading of Patrick White’s Voss and J. M. Coetzee’s Dusklands, this essay probes how this settler-colonial literary tradition simultaneously underwrites and complicates (continued) white imperialism and black un-belonging in ways that both suggest and test the conceptual prospects and limits of a universal, egalitarian “commonwealth”.