Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds [Paperback]

Dorothy Holland (Author), William Lachicotte Jr. (Author), Debra Skinner (Author), Carole Cain (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 16, 2001 | ISBN-10: 0674005627 | ISBN-13: 978-0674005624

This landmark book addresses the central problem in anthropological theory today: the paradox that humans are products of social discipline yet producers of remarkable improvisation.

Synthesizing theoretical contributions by Vygotsky, Bakhtin and Bourdieu, Holland and her co-authors examine the processes by which people are constituted as agents as well as subjects of culturally constructed, socially imposed worlds. They develop a theory of self-formation in which identities become the pivot between discipline and agency: turning from experiencing one's scripted social positions to making one's way into cultural worlds as a knowledgeable and committed participant. They emphasize throughout that "identities" are not static and coherent, but variable, multivocal and interactive.

Ethnographic illumination of this complex theoretical construction comes from vividly described fieldwork in vastly different microcultures: American college women "caught" in romance; persons in U.S. institutions of mental health care; members of Alcoholics Anonymous groups; and girls and women in the patriarchal order of Hindu villages in central Nepal.

Ultimately, Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds offers a liberating yet tempered understanding of agency, for it shows how people, across the limits of cultural traditions and social forces of power and domination, improvise and find spaces to re-describe themselves, creating their cultural worlds anew.

Editorial Reviews

Review

This book brings a breath of fresh air into the otherwise unimaginative social discourse on 'social identity' that reigns in anthropology and psychology in our time. The perspective outlined in the book is a practice theory; practice conceived not merely as what human beings do, but also what they imagine in conjunction with doing. The authors restore the centrality of personal positioning in the contruction of cultural worlds, and bring anthropologists and psychologists together after their long intellectual separation.
--Jaan Valsiner, Clark University

Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds is a work of keen intelligence and originality, carefully and clearly written. The authors make an impressive argument about the way in which agency and structure are tangled up in each other, and provide a specific guide to sorting out their various skeins. An essential book for contemporary anthropological theory.
--Tanya Luhrmann, University of California, San Diego

Inventive and interdisciplinary...an excellent volume that deserves a wide readership and will be of considerable interest to a number of psychology's researchers, theorists, practitioners, students, and subdisciplines.
--Mark A. Adams (Contemporary Psychology )

(A) clear and informative account of how people reshape their sense of self, negotiate their cultural or "figured" world, and rebel against social norms The ethnographic examples include the efforts of undergraduate women to navigate the world of romance; the contested plights of women, especially lower-caste women in Nepal; creating an Alcoholics Anonymous identity by telling the right sort of narrative about one's life; the struggles to survive of persons suffering from mental disorders...Recommended at all levels.
--J.R. Bowen (Choice )

Review

This book brings a breath of fresh air into the otherwise unimaginative social discourse on 'social identity' that reigns in anthropology and psychology in our time. The perspective outlined in the book is a practice theory; practice conceived not merely as what human beings do, but also what they imagine in conjunction with doing. The authors restore the centrality of personal positioning in the contruction of cultural worlds, and bring anthropologists and psychologists together after their long intellectual separation.
--Jaan Valsiner, Clark University --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: President and Fellows of Harvard College (March 16, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674005627
• ISBN-13: 978-0674005624
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #369,092 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great read for the academic and general public alike, July 18, 2011

By 

A. CohenMiller (San Antonio, TX United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds (Paperback)

Holland et al.'s "Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds" beautifully succeeds at deconstructing the concept of identities as they are practiced, formed, and reformed by focusing on four contexts - "figured worlds," positionality, space of authoring, and making worlds/play. Utilizing a theoretical framework from Vygotsky, Bahktin, and Bourdieu, much of the book addresses concepts of identity that relate to gender as it is played out, or practiced, within society, and the ways in which individuals and groups negotiate these meanings.

The authors do well in making "Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds" accessible to a large audience, including educators, researchers and the lay public by including case studies of their previous work (e.g. a study about critical song writing/singing by Nepalese women for a yearly festival; the use of stories in Alcoholics Anonymous as a means of identity formation; learning the "figured world" of romance for women at college; and reframing oneself within the context of mental disorders). It is through the use of examples, that readers could have a chance to both see themselves and their own culture within the pages of the book and also the multitude of ways in which people utilize (self) agency to choose an action to proceed with that often does not even seem possible from an outsiders perspective. For instance, even as a doctoral student who has been studying issues of identity and gender, reading about the "devaluing" of women within "Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds" helped me to understand and validate my own struggles as a woman within our culture.

Yet there was one aspect of the book that I found a bit disconnected from the rest of the work. In the final chapter, Holland et al. explain that they have developed a new theory of human action that moves beyond cultural rules of identity development. Unfortunately this one point feels disjointed from the way in which the authors have discussed their work and described identity and agency throughout the majority of the book. Although it could be an important point, if it was incorporated throughout the book, this shift to a discussion of theory in the final chapter is distracting.

However, overall, "Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds" is highly effective at addressing concepts of identity and agency especially as they relate to gender and society - processual, every-changing, and dependent on context. Unlike many "academic" books that tend to focus on theory and critique, the authors, who represent an interdisciplinary background ranging in specialty from medical and cultural anthropology, psychiatry, to child development use a much more reader friendly and engrossing method of writing. Holland et al. utilize a critical theoretical approach along with their extensive professional fieldwork and practice to describe "identities in practice" including agency, improvisation, and resourcefulness, concepts and explanations that could be fairly easily incorporated within a wide array of teaching and learning situations.

0 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Review of the service not of the book, May 14, 2009

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Katemari "Student on a budget" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds (Paperback)

I can't really review the book itself, since I haven't finished reading it. However in regards to the service in delivering the book, the shipping was faster than I expected and the book arrived in perfect conditions.

0 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Seller!, June 13, 2007

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Saba T. Ebrahim - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds (Paperback)

It was on time and in condition described. Great and honest seller! :)