“Every human action is anthropophagic”

The Freudian theory and the era of acceleration announced by the Futurist Manifesto arrived in Brazil in 1899 and 1909, respectively. Afterwards the concrete reception of these two significant events became more than the symptomatic revelation of the shocks provoked by industrial modernity and its powerful undercurrent of anxieties. The poet, „clown“, writer and major figure of the Brazilian modernist avant-garde, Oswald de Andrade (1890-1954) absorbed Freud and the Futurist Manifesto at once, re-pragmatized and re-semantized them. Oswald's concept of Cultural Anthropophagy (1928) as a central interpretative strategy, to be exact, an hermeneutic approach is defined by Haroldo de Campos aptly: “Oswald's ‘Anthropophagy’ [...] is the thought of critical devoration of the universal cultural heritage” (Campos,1986). The introduction of the anthropophagic trope inspired by Native Americans’ metaphysics leads the poet to a subversion of the Gestalt/Behavior psychological theories: “The anthropophagic function of the psychological behavior is reduced to two parts: 1) totemiser the external taboos; 2) create a new taboo in exogamic function” (Andrade,1929). From 1928 to 1950 the Anthropophagy approach on the interaction between the individual and the environment gained philosophical consistency. Oswald's thesis is a conceptual alternative that attempted to bring answers through the amplification of our ethical becoming. As an epistemological perspective attentive to the different modes of existence, the proposition of Oswald is a field of transformative practices having the power to overcome the techno-industrial paradigms. I will examine the contribution of Oswald de Andrade to theoretical psychology and to the issues that arise in an “Era of Acceleration” where the symbolic field is replaced by a cybernetic field.

Doing Gender Through Patterns

in play. I build on feminist questionings of the notion of gender identity within the field of gender studies, to outline a sociocultural, psychological proposition. I propose to bridge the problem of sameness and fluidity in gender through the notion of psychological patterns, as semiotic and relational modes through which people express and develop their actions (Cabra, in press; Zittoun, 2020). The paper proceeds in three moves. First, I present the central tenets of a sociocultural psychology and develop an understanding of gender within this perspective. Second, I present and develop the idea of psychological patterns. Third, to substantiate my proposition, I present two examples of children doing gender and the patterns I argue they have so far developed.

Where is Tyche?

In this paper, I seek to revitalize the concept of happiness by conceptualizing it as a relational and instantaneous phenomenon with both existential, ethical and political dimensions. Happiness hap-ens – in and through encounters, and it does so when we least expect it. Drawing on Bachelard’s writings on ‘the instant’, as well as Gumbrecht’s and Rosa’s much related concepts of ‘presence’ and ‘resonance’, I attempt to formulate a more relational and nonvolitional counter-concept of happiness that blurs the border between eudemonic happiness and subjective well-being on the one hand and positive affect on the other. Safe-guarding opportunities for these moments to happen is to be seen as vital in a contemporary society governed by individualization, rationalization and hedonistic principles. Even though one cannot choose to be happy, one can indeed lead a good life; colored by an openness towards the other and what might come.

Psychologies of not Knowing

Social and liberation movements all over the world have acted on the premise that oppression is kept alive, among other ways, through psychological mechanisms. Feminist and critical race epistemologies such as “feminist standpoint theories” and “epistemological ignorance” suggest that there might be different forms of not knowing involved depending on the social location of the (not) knowing subject. In this paper we suggest that the concrete psychological mechanisms involved in not knowing or outright ignorance differ according to one’s position in the social fabric of oppression and privilege. Drawing on various critical psychological and psychoanalytic reflections, as well as interpreting selected passages from a group discussion among elderly retirement home residents in Vienna, we illustrate how social position is translated into lack of knowledge about systems of oppression and privilege

The Subject Lagging Behind the Acceleration of Neoliberal Capitalist Discourse

The capitalist discourse, as formulated by Lacan, imposes a ceaseless movement, a continuous displacement without friction or obstacles, which is going faster and faster as we get into deep neoliberalism. Its acceleration is correlated with its freedom—the freedom of neoliberal capitalism, the free market and the free circulation of goods, including subjective commodities. People must follow the rhythm of production and consumption, a rhythm that, as Marx showed, consumes people as much as it consumes their environment, their planet and their conditions of existence, which are also those of capitalism itself. The capitalist discourse, according to Lacan, undermines itself by consuming its own foundation. The capital even consumes itself by its effectiveness. The efficiency of capital, which implies an unsustainable progressive acceleration, is what this paper will examine at the subjective level. It will show how the subject is radically excluded— forclosed—when there is no time for them to live, stop and exist, be unoccupied, look back, resignify their history and understand until the moment of conclusion. Without conclusion of anything, there is no interval to unfold the subject’s existence. There is no point at which life can be anything other than labour and consumption, i.e., production and realization of capital.

Affectivity and Relational Awareness in Pedagogy and Education

In this article, we put forward the concept ‘relational awareness’ to describe a conscious awareness of the experience of relational responsivity and dynamics of change in stressful intersubjective encounters in pedagogy and education. This concept is inspired by phenomenology and cultural-historical theory. We introduce the theories of extended affectivity, embodied resonance and intersubjectivity and relate these to cultural-historical psychology in order to explore how people appraise and understand situations related to societal goals, motives, practices and mediating means. Relational awareness, which involves being consciously aware of embodied, pre-reflective relational responsivity, is specific to the cultural context, to the mediating means, and the lived experiences of the person. Relational awareness and responsivity can be objects of reflection and education when educational practices include deliberate work on embodied experience and mediational means to reflect on and change experienced intercorporeity. Relational awareness differs from interpersonal perception in that it involves embodied activity mediated by embodied knowledge and social means of language and discourse.Our conceptualisation of relational awareness is empirically driven by two qualitative studies of preschool teachers’ and teachers’ embodied practices to become presently aware during intersubjective encounters with children in stressful everyday conditions. The embodied practices in the study were inspired by exercises in mindfulness and compassion, which were adjusted according to how the participants experienced their significance. The flexibly adjusted exercises and discourses appeared to provide participants with the mediational embodied and discoursive means to become relationally aware in difficult encounters. Biesta’s conceptualisation of ‘moments of hesitation’ contributes to the discussion of ‘relational awareness’ in education and care.

Changing self in the digital age

This article integrates William James’ (1890) theoretical model of Self with contemporary theoretical discourse and recent research on the impact of digital technology upon the Self. An overview of James’ self-theory is presented and followed by a detailed review of contemporary publications on self in our increasingly digital world; organized around the Spiritual, Social and Material realms of James’ “Me”. This is followed by this author’s extension of James’ concept of “I” into contemporary discourse on the person in terms of authenticity, agency and power. It is shown that the “Spiritual Self” is reflected in technology as fragmented, decentred and dislocated while the “Social Self” has expanded into virtual communities; continuing to seek recognition from others, but in a magnified and accelerated fashion. A cultural shift has been identified towards one of simulation and surveillance. Transformations of the “Material Self” in terms of physical bodies, interaction with the material world, and with material others, are presently observed. This author’s conceptual and theoretical exploration has also shown a corresponding loss of control and fracturing of the status of the person through the rise of surveillance and loss of personal rights that challenges the theoretical construct and everyday experience of persons.

“We were at this crossroads”

People and societies are guided by what they imagine to lie beyond the present, by what can and should be the case in the future. Yet people do not always agree about the form, content or path to realisation of a given imagined future. As a result, conflicts can arise over something that does not exist yet. In this paper, I propose to integrate theories of social and alternative representations with a sociocultural psychological interpretation of imagination, in order to explore the addressivity of futures and to call for more studies that explicitly take into account the future’s role in the present. I draw on a dialogical case study that was carried out on the Faroe Islands, more precisely on the island of Suðuroy. Whereas the Faroe Islands are experiencing a rapid acceleration in growth, Suðuroy has failed to keep pace and has witnessed decades of emigration and a worsening of its population’s relative socio-economic situation. Islanders liken the current situation to standing at a crossroads, while being unable to agree on which path must be taken in order to reinvigorate a shrinking future. By analysing how one of the two major social representations constructs the other – its alternative representation – I suggest that the absence of transformative dialogue results from incompatible futures. Furthermore, in line with a sociocultural psychological perspective, I also attempt to move beyond the homogenising force inherent in social representation theory by introducing Ingolf and Karin, whose stories illustrate how social and alternative representations are not uniformly shared and enacted, but take different forms in light of unique life experiences.

Being in the Era of Acceleration

This paper explores “being” from an experiential and a physical/material perspective in the context of the era of acceleration. A focal point is the human relationship to technology and the environment, more specifically, this paper expands Ander’s concepts of Herstellungskraft (productive powers) and Vorstellungskraft (imaginative powers) of nuclear weapons and then applies this framework to our current crisis of environmental destruction. The paper also explores defining technologies as they relate to the dilemmas above, analogies of traveller and tourist, and the Danish concept of hygge (as both a tradition and as a response to acceleration).

Sustaining Dialogue in Polarised Political Contexts

The rise of populism is a prevalent issue on the political landscape both in Europe and the wider world. Such ideologies create defamatory political narratives and exacerbate already partisan social media spaces. This trend challenges psychologists interested in politics to consider what factors could influence dialogue sustainment in these polarised contexts. The current focus of social psychology research is towards identity-based theories to mediate such interactions. The purpose of this paper is to challenge the idea that identity-models are the only effective means of depolarising real-world, discursive political conflicts. This article critiques identity on the following: (1) Ontological assumptions of binary group oppositionality are limiting and unrepresentative of real-world interactions, and (2) Current identity-based models for mediating are ineffective in highly polarised, real-world contexts. We consider the issue of polarising political discourse from a dialogical perspective and propose the Dialogue Sustainment Theoretical Model as an alternative. The model considers: (1) Citizens as political actors with worldviews, (2) The role of the dynamic & relational positionality, and (3) The influence of chronotopic boundaries on political debate. Whilst we acknowledge identity can transcend polarisation in certain contexts, it does not possess such a capacity in politically polarised, real-world contexts. Instead, we argue for an alternative model which is dialogically-focused and offers a distinctive insight into sustaining dialogue.