The “&” has emerged. Seeking “culture” and “psychology” for Culture & Psychology

Abstract

On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Culture & Psychology, the author retrospectively evaluates the journal's metatheoretical and theoretical developmental trajectories. For this purpose, seven editorials were treated as the primary texts in the foreground as evaluative reflections of the knowledge field themselves. And in the background, the author's own readership and conceptualizations inevitably provided the additional intellectual material for this brief essay. First, she highlights the journal's initial aspirations for culture-inclusive psychology scholarship it welcomes, the necessary and (im)possible tasks and the evaluative standards it sets for itself. They are presented as the identity developmental markers and grouped around seven axiomatic themes. Second, the possible sources of ''developmental delays,'' ''deviations'' from its valued norms, or for the ''unattained'' ideals as judged by its own standards, are sorted out in terms of implicit/ explicit knowledge positions presupposed within the heterogeneity of the scholarship. Third, the achievements and/or determinate decisions are acknowledged. Lastly, the author critically reflects from within her own perspectivally prospective perspective towards further transformations of contemporary psychology as culture/culture as psychology.

Towards a Cultural Psychology: Meaning and Social Practice as Key Elements

“…However, the recognition of differences between approaches does not mean, as Poortinga (1997) remarks, that they should be considered as incompatible. Instead, they should be viewed as different contributions to the construction of Cultural Psychology (Ellis & Stam, 2015;Gülerce, 2015). Despite the discrepancies between theorists, they all share a central tenet: "Cultural Psychology is, first of all, a designation for the comparative study of the way culture and psyche make each other up" (Shweder & Sullivan, 1993, p. 498).…”

Where are you, Culture & Psychology? Making of an interdisciplinary field

“…Hence the ‘&’ in the title – which I have insisted upon ever since, even though in late 1990s there were suggestions to get rid of it and revert to ‘Cultural Psychology’. I refused – and continue to do so – on the plurality of the arena where culture and psychologies meet (see Gülerçe, 2015 in her effort to reveal the ‘mystery of the &’).…”