Positioning in the dialogical self: recent advances in theory construction

Abstract

[Extract] The literature on the dialogical self has grown significantly over the past two decades. The two guiding metaphors of a dialogical approach, namely that the self takes the form of both a 'conversation' and a 'mini-society', have been inspirational for researchers working across many topics in social, cultural and clinical psychology, and in neighbouring social sciences (e.g. Barresi 2002; Bhatia and Ram 2001; Chandler 2004; Fogel et al 2002; Gieser 2006; Hermans 2001; Hermans and Dimaggio 2004; Hermans and Hermans-Konopka 2010; Hermans and Kempen 1 993; Hevern 2004; Josephs 2002; Lewis. 2002; Lysaker 2006; Raggatt 2000, 2006; Sampson 1993; Stiles 1999; Tappan 2005). Fundamental to dialogical self theory (DST) is the proposition that the self has extension in both space and time through processes of positioning. Inspired particularly by William James (1890), Mikhail Bakhtin (1981, 1984) and George Herbert Mead (1934), Hermans (2001) has conceptualized the dialogical self as an extended 'position repertoire'. The repertoire contains a variety of interacting 'internal positions' (e.g. I as adventurer, I as pessimist), 'external positions' (e.g. the imagined voice of my father), and 'outside' positions (e.g. interlocutors, significant others, groups). In this dynamic arrangement, positioning processes are at play on multiple levels: in our 'self-talk', in our relationships, in the social order we inhabit, and in our cultural activities. As the engine of DST, therefore, the concept of positioning has a broad range of convenience with applications at different levels of engagement. Because of this breadth, an integrated, nuanced and comprehensive theory of positioning is needed.

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