Speaking of one's life: what can we learn from transcultural studies?

Abstract

The work by Demuth et al. (Integrative Psychological and Bahavioral Science 45:1-20, 2011) is very important in the scenario of transcultural research, as it goes beyond the specific contexts of India and Germany. They successfully explored the dialogic relation between remembered autobiography, the self and the culture from a trans-generational development perspective, managing to identify common and unique processes of each culture. I, however, using a dynamical systems approach, present a supplementary way to the one chosen in the study, with the goal of analyzing how these new perspectives might contribute to the understanding of this phenomenon. The dynamical systems is a perspective sensitive to non-linearity of phenomena and interested in understanding how processes emerge, as it may be useful to analyze the family as a dynamical system under constant interaction with other systems, which makes the emergence of the self, possible. Besides, it would enable the identification of trajectories that individuals build over time, the moments of change and variability, as well as identifying different types of patterns in the process of construction of the self.