Culture and Social Change: Transforming Society Through the Power of Ideas (Advances in Cultural Psychology: Constructing Human Development)

This book brings together social sciencists to create an interdisciplinary dialogue on the topic of social change as a cultural process. Culture is as much about novelty as it is about tradition, as much about change as it is about stability. This dynamic tension is analyzed in collective protests, intergroup dynamics, language, mass media, science, community participation, art, and social transitions to capitalism, among others contexts. These diverse cases illustrate a number of key factors that can propel, slow-down and retract social change. An emancipatory and integrative social science is developed in this book, which offers a new explanatory model of human behavior and thought under conditions of institutional and societal change. Series editor preface : semiotic freedom for the social sciences: inquiry in a new key / Jaan Valsiner Introduction : changing times, changing science / Brady Wagoner, Eric Jensen, and Julian Oldmeadow Collective action in context The psychology of collective action: crowds and change / John Drury, Steve Reicher, and Clifford Scott Commentary : collectives may protest, but how do authorities respond? / Flora Cornish Change we can believe in : the role of social identity, cognitive Alternatives, and leadership in group mobilization and transformation / Stephen D. Reicher and S. Alexander Haslam Commentary : change non-westerners can believe in / Fathali Moghaddam, Zach Warren, and Rhea Vance-Cheng Communicating change Metaphor and stories in discourse about personal and social change / David Ritchie Commentary : the earth, olympus, and the commuter bus / Carlos Cornejo Balancing stability and change : a neo-diffusionist perspective on cultural dynamics of socially transformative ideas / Yoshihisa Kashima, Boyka Bratanova, and Kim Peters Commentary : the meeting of ideas: diffusion, dialogical interaction, and social change / Brady Wagoner Scientific controversies and the struggle for symbolic power / Eric Jensen Commentary : the struggle for scientific consensus: communicating climate science around cop-15 / Rick Holliman Societies in transition Mediating social change in authoritarian and democratic states : irony, hybridity, and corporate censorship / Eric Jensen Commentary: subversively funny : critical humor in art / Lisa Sayles Assessing social change through social capital : local leadership and social-political change in bolivia / Martin Mendoza Commentary: social influence and social change : states and strategies of social capital / Gordon Sammut and Mohammad Sartawi Changing fields, changing habitusus : the field of public service in post-soviet ukraine / Anastasia Ryabchuk Commentary: dependent independence : a mechanism for conciliating determinism and freedom / Maaris Raudsepp Conclusion : a cyclical model of social change / Brady Wagoner, Eric Jensen, and Julian Oldmeadow About the authors. "This book brings together social scientists to create an interdisciplinary dialogue on the topic of social change as a cultural process. Culture is as much about novelty as it is about tradition, as much about change as it is about stability. This dynamic tension is analyzed in collective protests, intergroup dynamics, language, mass media, science, community participation, art, and social transitions to capitalism, among others contexts. These diverse cases illustrate a number of key factors that can propel, slow-down and retract social change. An emancipatory and integrative social science is developed in this book, which offers a new explanatory model of human behavior and thought under conditions of institutional and societal change." --Publisher description