Use Of Symbolic Resources Research Articles

Recursos simbólicos e imaginação no contexto da contação de histórias

Resumo O presente artigo tem como proposta analisar a contação de histórias e a interação entre professora e crianças com ênfase na utilização dos recursos simbólicos - e, por conseguinte, a expansão da imaginação por meio do aporte teórico da Psicologia Histórico-Cultural. A pesquisa, de cunho qualitativo, utilizou, para a construção dos dados, observações e videogravação de episódios de contação de histórias em uma biblioteca escolar da Educação Infantil. Posteriormente, foram realizadas microanálises de episódios interativos. Os participantes da pesquisa foram 18 crianças entre 4 e 5 anos e 1 professora de biblioteca escolar da Educação Infantil. A contação de histórias, feita de forma interativa, potencializou o uso de recursos simbólicos quando os participantes fizeram referências às suas experiências cotidianas permeadas por afetividade - o que, consequentemente, desencadeou a expansão dos processos imaginativos.

Mobilizing community energy

What explains the galvanising of communities to participate actively in energy projects? How do groups mobilize to overcome the often formidable barriers highlighted in the existing literature? Drawing on original qualitative research of 100 community energy groups in Scotland, including six in-depth case studies, we explain how effective mobilization occurs and the political dynamics surrounding such mobilization. To capture these dynamics, we adapt theories offered by literature on social movements, with a particular focus on resource mobilization theories. Applying our adapted framework, we identify two particular sets of resources shaping community energy mobilization: (i) structural resources, which refer to the broad political context structuring and constraining opportunities for community energy mobilization; and (ii) symbolic resources—less tangible resources used to galvanise participants. We investigate to what extent our case study groups were able to draw upon and exploit these resources. We find that structural resources can either facilitate or hinder mobilization; what matters is how state resources are exploited and constraints mitigated. The use of symbolic resources was highly effective in aiding mobilization. Each of the groups examined – despite their considerable variation – effectively exploited symbolic resources such as shared identity or desire for strong, self reliant communities.

Drawing on the Notion of Symbolic Resources in Exploring the Development of Cultural Identities in Immigrant Transitions

This paper examines the processes by which cultural identities develop through the use of symbolic resources (Zittoun, 2006). The notion of symbolic resources provides a framework that enables one to consider developmental transitions between practices and between historical times. For Portuguese students, these transitions initially involved a rupture, a loss of social resources and linguistic resources, which resulted in a cultural awareness. This cultural awareness led to alterations in the positioning of their cultural selves, either by themselves personally or by others. Social resources mediated access to new symbolic resources, and this included experiencing the ‘other’ as constructive and meaningful to the self. This ‘other’ became symbolic and thus the physical presence of that person is not necessarily needed. We argue that in order to comprehend cultural identity development, the notion of symbolic resources can be extended to include the social resource as that which is ‘symbolic’.

Review Essay: Selves on the Move

This review examines how we can use the theoretical and methodological tools of Gillespie's book to become better social scientists. We examine ways of approaching intergroup relations by applying the ideas of the book to the context of immigrants moving to Greece. Issues of the mediation of culture in communication and understanding between people are then examined. Specifically, the paths of understanding through the use of symbolic resources are explored through the contexts of Ladakhi tourism and of immigrants in Greece. Finally, we examine the ways in which social scientists move in their understanding of social phenomena.

Review symposium: Encountering Objects and Others as a Means of Passage

Zittoun's Transitions investigates how young people use cultural elements, like movies and novels, to manage ruptures as a specific moment in their life span, leading to transitions from one socio-psychological location to another. Zittoun's perspective is cultural as well as developmental, and can thus make visible the dynamicity of individual meaning-making processes, a semiosis taking place in the field of self, other, culture and objects which are used as symbolic resources in constructing identity. Zittoun proposes a three-dimensional model of the use of symbolic resources ( aboutness , time and distancing), accompanied by two theoretical constructs: the semiotic prism and the spheres of experience. This complex and transparent architecture is investigated empirically through the case studies of thirty young people whose interviews are thoughtfully analysed. Although Zittoun relates a person, others, a cultural element and the meaning of this element for the person in a dynamic semiotic movement of change, she does not elaborate on the dialogical dimension of this movement of change. It is otherness of and `in' objects which then comes to the foreground. This opened but not developed path is taken up by the reviewer, leading to the notion of dialogical objects: objects which are actually dialogical processes, developing in time within an exchange of voices and positions. Using a dialogical object as symbolic resource means activating the dialogical self; and investigating these uses gives the opportunity to observe the dialogical self in construction. Semioticity, accompanying and forming identity processes, is thus to be completed with alterity, giving these processes orientation and sociocultural value.

The Use of Symbolic Resources in Developmental Transitions

This paper introduces the idea of symbolic resources as the use of cultural elements to mediate the representational work occasioned by ruptures or discontinuities in the smooth experience of ordinary life, moments when the ‘taken-for-granted’ meanings cease to be taken for granted. In particular we are concerned with the use of symbolic resources in moments of developmental transitions, that is, the mobilization of symbolic elements ranging from shared bodies of knowledge or argumentative strategies to movies, magazines or art pieces. The paper begins with a brief theoretical sketch of these ideas, and then presents three case studies, each of which involves the use of a different type of symbolic resource within a particular age group. In the first, children are observed in interaction with a peer about a conservation problem. In the second, adolescents are observed negotiating the meaning of their art productions with their peers, teachers and parents. The third example looks at Western tourists searching for spirituality, adventure and freedom in Ladakh as an alternative to the materialism of modernity. In each case the analysis of the symbolic resources employed indicates the significance of the gaze of the other in the construction of meanings, and of the various constraints operating within specific situations. The analysis also reveals different modes of use of symbolic resources, linked to changing forms of reflectivity.