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A social representation is not a quiet thing: Exploring the critical potential of social representations theory

2006· article· en· 499 citations· W2161619182 on OpenAlex· 10.1348/014466605x43777

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A frame that forgets how it found something cannot be audited. These are the routes that admitted this work.

Canadian funderA Canadian agency funded it. The work may carry no Canadian affiliation at all.

No Canadian affiliation. An affiliation-only frame — the usual design — would never have seen this work. It is one of the works that make the case for inverting the frame.

Machine scores (provisional)

Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.

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Opus teacher head0.080
GPT teacher head0.434
Teacher spread
0.354 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation status
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Abstract

Following Moscovici (1972), this paper addresses the questions: What is the aim of research within a social representations perspective? Is it to support or to criticize the social order? Is it to consolidate or transform it? After a brief overview of social representations theory, I argue that while the theory appears to have the conceptual tools to begin this critical task, there are serious criticisms and points of underdevelopment that need addressing. In order for social representations theory to develop into a rigorously critical theory there are three controversial issues that require clarification. These are (a) the relationship between psychological processes and social practices, (b) the reification and legitimization of different knowledge systems, and (c) agency and resistance in the co-construction of self-identity. After discussing each issue in turn, with illustrations from research on racializing representations, I conclude the paper with a discussion of the role of representations in the ideological construction and contestation of reality.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

The record

Venue
British Journal of Social Psychology
Topic
Social Representations and Identity
Field
Psychology
Canadian institutions
Funders
Trent UniversityNottingham Trent University
Keywords
Reification (Marxism)EpistemologyIdeologyAgency (philosophy)SociologySocial theorySocial identity theorySocial representationSocial psychologyRepresentation (politics)Critical theoryIdentity (music)Perspective (graphical)PsychologySocial groupSocial sciencePolitics
Has abstract in OpenAlex
yes