Emotional experience,meaning,and sense production: Interweaving concepts to dialogue with the funds of identity approach

Abstract

This essay comments on the paper by Esteban and Moll (2014), which proposes the concept of funds of identity. The comments reflect the concepts of emotional experience (perezhivanie), semiotic mediation (Vygotsky), and the process of meaning and sense production (Bakhtin), which affirm that human development is rooted in the synthesis of social and personal history. According to this perspective, the individual’s subjectivity is produced by and immersed within the social world, and even when the environmental conditions remain almost the same, the role of the environment changes as the person changes during the process of development, mediated by the meanings and senses produced through the social practices and interactions. Regarding the illustrative examples presented by the authors, it is argued that the students’ funds of identity can be an important resource to teachers, not only as a departing point to the school practices but also as material for the school to accomplish its historical role of collectively constructing and sharing social knowledge and cultural experience. The concept of funds of identity can be viewed as a very provocative way to analyze how sociocultural experiences produce subjectivity. Future studies can further the theoretical discussion, deepening on the possibilities, implications, and limits of the concept.

Keywords

Emotional experience semiotic mediation meaning and sense production school practices Vygotsky Bakhtin

Understanding the funds of identity approach

In this commentary on the paper “Funds of Identity: A new concept based on the Funds of Knowledge approach” by Moises Esteban and Luis Moll, I will start by summarizing the authors’ arguments and point out some questions for furthering the discussion.

According to the authors, since William James’s work The Empirical Self and Me was first published in 1890, several studies have been dedicated to understand the nature of self. James’ contribution is remarkable due to the fact that, as a nonmetaphysical conception of self, it includes the social and cultural aspects in the psychological analysis. In his analyses, the experience of self is related to the individual/subjective experience, as well as to the cultural experience.

Esteban and Moll affirm that, despite several efforts to conceptualize the self, the concept of identity remains “an ambiguous, confused and abstract term.” The comprehension about identity depends on the theoretical approach; the notion of identity can be related to cognitive, cultural, personal, or social aspects. According to them, as a result of these theoretical approaches, identity has been referred and explained in several ways, and it is impossible to come up with a correct or wrong definition.

The authors discuss identity from a Vygotskian perspective. Even though Vygotsky only developed general ideas about personality and nothing specifically about identity, his theoretical ideas allow the conceptualization of self and identity, which has been done by authors in sociocultural and cultural psychology. From that perspective, they attempt to explain how the concept of identity can be situated in relation to funds of knowledge approach.

Based on Vygotsky’s fundaments, they argue that the relationship between subjective and cultural/collective experience can be pointed out through the concept of perezhivanie. This Vygotskian concept, understood as emotional experience or lived experience, explains how the same objective situation or experience can be experienced, perceived, and interpreted by the persons in different manners—“each event of situation has a different effect on behavior depending on how each person understands it” (p. 37).

By bringing in other authors’ contributions, Esteban and Moll elaborate the relationship between lived experience and subjectivity. They argue that lived experiences are culturally organized, and that people form senses of themselves through symbolic forms in relation to roles, positions, and cultural imaginaries. Identity, thus, can be comprehended as a symbolic, reflexive, and social product—an internalized set of meanings and a source of motivation for action. They also postulate that identity is a social product and a cultural device (a kind of toolbox and a consciousness device). All those aspects together consist in what they call funds of identity.

The funds of knowledge approach is based on the idea that persons are competent and have life experiences throughout which they can accumulate the knowledge they need to develop all the tasks required in everyday life. In this sense, Esteban and Moll affirm that funds of knowledge are socially shared artifacts or psychological tools that mediate people’s behaviors. The intrinsic connection between individual and social world implied by funds of knowledge is equally considered by funds of identity approach. So, funds of knowledge can become funds of identity as individuals internalize specific resources to construct meanings and describe themselves. They state that funds of identity consist in the artifacts and resources provided by the social and cultural worlds which “become resources for making and expressing identity” (p. 36).

Finally, the authors argue that identity is related to an internalized and externalized set of meanings, practices, and distributed resources. This elaboration entails the following aspects: “Identities are comprised of all those people, skills, knowledge, practices and resources”; “these artifacts are internalized as well as externalized”; “people form their identities through these acquired resources by engaging in social activities and observing members interacting”; “identity—as with any other higher order psychological process—is essentially social in origin”; “funds of knowledge are repositories of identity to which people have access” (Esteban & Moll, 2014, p. 37). Taking into account all those aspects, they conclude that the notion of funds of identity denotes a set of resources or box of tools and signs. The processes of identity making are supported by symbolic devices, not only artifacts but also by social institutions, practices, relationships, and geographies. This observation allows the authors to subdivide funds of identity into five major types—Geographical, Practical, Cultural, Social, and Institutional Funds of Identity.

After these theoretical elaborations, the authors present some illustrative examples in order to detect and analyze funds of identity. They indicate the use of visual methods in order to gather data about the family history, including several aspects such as structure, labor, household activities, parental attitudes, financial situation, religion, education, and ethnic identity. The strategies employed in this research were basically the drawing of a self-portrait and a relational map (significant circle), complemented by in-depth interviews. The use of such techniques is justified by the fact that relevant information on the lived experiences can emerge when the participants draw or talk about themselves. In this situation, the research can identify the resources which support the participants’ description and the meaning-making process.

In funds of knowledge approach, the principal focus is on the adult household practices and social worlds as the primary unit of analysis. In this sense, as suggested by Esteban and Moll, the notion of funds of identity enlarges and goes beyond funds of knowledge, due to the fact that the former notion aims at collecting information related to the children’s perspective. For instance, in a school context, the concept of funds of identity considers students as active members who create their own funds of knowledge, different from the adult’s practices and perspective.

Dialoguing with the concept of funds of identity

I agree with the authors’ argument that identity is historical and culturally constructed, while the individual participates in the cultural practices. In addition, the notion of funds of identity can be productive to explain how the individual’s subjectivity is produced by and immersed in the social world. However, regarding the elaboration presented by the authors, I would like to point out two aspects in order to further the discussion on identity. The first aspect is more related to the theoretical discussion and the second is concerned to the analysis of the illustrative examples.

Furthering the discussion on funds of identity: The concept of emotional experience, meaning and sense production, semiotic mediation

As affirmed by Esteban and Moll, the notion of funds of identity allows understanding how individuals mobilize a certain set of social and collective meanings, practices, and resources that mediate the meaning-making processes, including the manner individuals describe themselves. In that regard, I propose to reassess the Vygotskian concept of emotional experience (perezhivanie) to better understand how individuals can elaborate their funds of identity. Reassessing the concept is an attempt to discuss a question already posed by Vygotsky (1994, p. 341): “How can one explain why exactly the same environment conditions exert” different types of influence on the children?

Vygotsky present the concept of emotional experience (perezhivanie) to explain how each person experiences and develops a different attitude in the same situation. He states that the education sciences should be

capable of finding the particular prism through which the influence of the environment on the child is refracted […] in other words, how a child becomes aware of, interprets, [and] emotionally relates to a certain event. This is such a prism which determines the role and influence of the environment on the development of, say, the child’s character, his psychological development, etc. (Vygotsky, 1994, p. 341)

In this elaboration, Vygotsky presents a relevant rupture with the empiricist explanations on human development, denying that the experience is directly reflected into the individuals. The concept of emotional experience implies a dynamical tension between the given world concrete conditions and the way of experiencing these conditions. The emotional experience is a unit in a constant dialectic relationship between the representation of the outside world and how the world is experienced by the person.

In other words, the emotional experience is the result of what impacts the person and how these situations are comprehended and signified by the person. The experience is always meaningful (Smolka, 2006). Hence, it is possible to say that the meaning and sense production is the fundamental prism which refracts the experience into the person, and that the meaning and sense production is the prism intrinsically related to semiotic mediation through which the person perceives and attributes values and meanings to the lived experiences. As a result, emotional experience establishes a reciprocal relationship between conditions of existence and personal experience. In the following paragraphs, I point out how conditions of existence and personal experience can be interwoven.

A relevant contribution that can deepen this discussion comes from the notion of human condition. According to the arguments of Hannah Arendt (1998) and Norbert Elias (1985), the idea of human condition emphasizes the tension between the given and the produced conditions of existence as contingent to the human life and goes beyond the metaphysical explanations embedded in the notion of human nature.

The human condition comprehends more than the conditions under which life has been given to man. […] In addition to the conditions under which life is given to man on earth, and partly out of them, men constantly create their own, self-made conditions, which, their human origin and their variability notwithstanding, possess the same conditioning power as natural things. Whatever touches or enters into a sustained relationship with human life immediately assumes the character of a condition of human existence. […] Whatever enters the human world of its own accord or is drawn into it by human effort becomes part of the human condition. […] On the other hand, the conditions of human existence – life itself, natality and mortality, worldliness, plurality, and the earth – can never “explain” what we are or answer the question of who we are for the simple reason that they never condition us absolutely. (Arendt, 1998, pp. 9–11)

The notion of human condition also brings the necessity of considering the complexity of human development in relation to the social and historical institutions by comprehending how the institutions and the social habitus compel certain forms of social relationships and circumscribe the human life conditions.

As presented by Arendt and Elias, the idea of the human condition contributes to reinforce the Vygotskian concept of emotional experience. The emphasis on the totality of aspects, which touches the human life, integrates the conditions of human existence (never condition absolutely) and Vygotsky’s formulation about emotional experience that explains how the environmental conditions can differently affect each person (Nogueira, 2006). The author expresses the relevance of conditions of existence to psychological development in the following:

In contrast to lower functions, the development of higher functions is governed by historical laws (see the character of Greeks and our character). The uniqueness of the human mind lies in the fact that both types of history (evolution + history) are united (synthesis) in it. (Vygotsky, 1989, p. 55)

In addition to Vygotsky’s words, it is possible to accept that the uniqueness of the human mind is related to the dialectical synthesis of history in different levels, namely, the evolution, the social history, and the personal history. As a result of this synthesis, the human development proceeds “toward individualization of social functions (transformation of social functions into psychological functions)” (Vygotsky, 1989, p. 61, emphasis in original). The theoretical principle that human development is rooted in the synthesis of history is fundamental to understand Vygotsky’s affirmation that even when the environmental conditions remain almost the same, the role of the environment changes as the person changes during the process of development. All these changes can be explained by the transformation of meanings attributed to and played by those conditions of existence. This is precisely the transformation of meanings that explains the relevance of semiotic mediation to the emergence of semiotic regulation which circumscribes the manner a person not only understands but also relates with the world (Abbey & Valsiner, 2005; Valsiner, 2002).

Regarding the meaning and sense production, the way each person signifies the lived experience is important to indicate that this is never an isolated process. According to Bakhtin Circle, the meaning and sense production process is social and ideological, dialogical, and multiple voiced. Hence, the meaning of the experience is produced in relation with multiple voices, internalizing different social positions and meanings. The social nature of human development can be explained by the relation of otherness, which dialogically affects and constitutes the individual. The Bakhtinian notion that, in the language process, intersubjectivity precedes subjectivity is in complete accordance with Vygotsky’s (1995) argument about transformation of social functions into psychological functions.

The Bakhtin’s formulations (1994a, 1994b) about verbal interaction are very productive to understand the process of meaning and sense production related to social experience. He affirms that the meaning belongs to a word as a sign of union between interlocutors, and that signification happens only in the active and responsive comprehension process.

Every concrete act of understanding is active […] To some extent, primacy belongs to response, as the activating principle> it creates the ground for understanding, it prepares the ground for an active and engaged understanding. […] Understanding and response are dialectally merged and mutually condition each other; one is impossible without other. (Bakhtin, 1994b, p. 282)

The meanings and senses are produced throughout the social and collective interactions, as a result and an effect of the interaction between interlocutors. These Bakhtinian arguments imply that meaning and sense production happen in an active and shared dynamic between the interlocutors. The meanings are neither given nor ready, but temporally produced as result of a tense dispute between the interlocutors due to the different social positions, concerns, experiences, values, and points of view.

The notion of funds of identity proposed by Esteban and Moll can be enlarged by taking into account Bakhtin’s comments on verbal interactions, expressions, and experiences. In that regard, the aspects highlighted by Vygotsky and Bakhtin—especially the concept of emotional experience, the proposition of embedment of human development within the synthesis of history, and the ideas of meaning and sense production—constitute an interesting possibility to explain how the same environment conditions affect each person. In the same way, these notions can explain how funds of identity are constructed by each person through participation in several spheres of the social and collective practices.

The subdivision concerning the five major types of funds of identity mentioned by Esteban and Moll is not explored in the descriptions and analysis of the illustrative examples. Funds of identity can vary depending on where these resources are rooted and how they are produced. For instance, funds of identity have multiple aspects, linked to different aspects and spheres of social life, such as geographical origin, practical and working activities, and cultural and institutional practices. But in any case, the main point is that funds of identity are always symbolic material. The individuals internalize the meanings and senses produced and collectively shared through the lived experiences. All those aspects—such as place and time of living, work activity, gender, ethnic group, relationship, institutional position—are intertwined and interdependent, forming a unique subjectivity.

The world experience is refracted by each person through a prism constructed in the social practices, where the meaning and sense production takes place. Thus, considering the main aspects in Esteban and Moll’s work, I would add the argument that funds of identity are a dynamic and reciprocal process, as lived experiences are refracted by each person depending on how each one understands and is affected by the conditions of existence. In this dialectical process, mediated by the social meanings collectively shared, the individuals construct their own set of semiotic tools, which in turn mediates the way they interact and behave. Hence, funds of identity constitute and, at the same time, are constituted by the semiotic resources. For this reason, it is necessary to recognize that funds of identity result from a very complex and endless process.

In addition, it is fundamental to consider that, as indicated by Vygotsky, the same experience can cause different effects on each person and even on the same person in different moments of life. Regarding the detection of funds of identity present by Esteban and Moll, it is necessary to consider the complexity and the dynamicity of the symbolic resources comprised in the concept, and also that this set of meanings mediates (neither conditions nor determines) the experience and behavior of each person in a totally unpredictable way. The issue brought by the authors is that they attempt to work with the idea of funds of identity as a pathway to describe subjective aspects without first understanding how each person signifies and is actually affected by the conditions of existence. Funds of identity can be a very productive concept to analyze and approach schooling processes if meaning and sense production, as well as semiotic mediation processes, receive a central role to explain transformations in the course of human life and development.

Why to detect funds of identity?

Esteban and Moll name a section “How to detect the funds of identity?” where they present illustrative examples including drawings, significant circles, and extracts of interviews to depict aspects of life. In the following paragraphs, I focus on the relevance and implications of detecting funds of identity in order to discuss why to detect funds of identity.

The issue of identity is a very recurrent aspect when talking about schooling and teaching practices. In that regard, how do teachers consider and deal with the students’ histories and experiences? The authors suggest that after detecting children’s funds of identity, teachers can use this information to develop teaching units, since students can better learn new information when it is related to their prior funds of identity. The idea that teachers must have information about their students’ life and prior experience is for sure relevant and incontestable, but I think that we should be careful before establishing a direct relation between funds of identity and teaching topics.

At first, it is necessary to keep in mind that funds of identity bring a set of semiotic aspects—including knowledge, values, practices, skills, resources—whose meaning and sense are not the same to all the students and teachers. For instance, when drawing their self-portrait and significant circle, some students indicate their participation of a similar routine related to the family farm business. In situations like that, when their conditions of existence appear alike, one could not affirm that all of them are affected in the same way. Each one refracts and signifies the lived experience through a certain prism—emotional experience (Vygotsky, 1994)—which in turn also mediates the personal experience. Besides that, emotional experience is comprised by a synthesis of history in different levels, including the social and personal history. As a result, the similar experience (family farm business) generates multiple and contradictory issues, depending on several contingencies, including the historical and cultural aspects, the social positions, the economic relationships (in my example, the kind of farm activity, the immigration, the family wealth, the fact of being owner or employee).

Second, I would like to point out that amplifying and enlarging the students’ knowledge is precisely the school institution main social task. For that reason, when the teachers have information about their students’ life, they need to take into account that the same topic can be explored in many ways. The description condensed in funds of identity can be really important to the teacher; however, this information is not sufficient to support the teaching process. So, in order to expand and deepen the student knowledge and experience, in my example about farm family business, the teacher can explore a large set of issues, such as the farming techniques, the financial aspects, and even the consequences of the globalization to the family businesses. But, in any case, when a teacher chooses to develop a topic and a certain way to approach it, this choice always has political and ideological implications. Regarding this point, Freire (1987, 2001) argues that there is no neutral or apolitical education. Moreover, by teaching those topics, the teacher can create opportunities to involve the students in a collective process of meaning and sense production, in which the students can reelaborate (the meaning of) their experience and knowledge, and then, recompound aspects of their funds of identity.

So, why to detect funds of identity in the school context? As exposed above, the information condensed in the funds of identity is a relevant resource to be considered by teachers in a broader sense, recognizing that funds of identity are semiotic mediators embedded in the meaning and sense production in the social relationships. And as such, the funds of identity bring the historical and social disputes, concerns and values, and aspects which not only configure departing points to the school practices, but also turn into the “raw material” that allows school to fulfill its historical role of collectively constructing and sharing social knowledge and cultural experience.

Final comments

The proposal of developing the funds of identity concept is an indicative of how the psychological, educational, sociological, anthropological, and linguistics studies have been in an (in)tense dialogue during the past decades. This dialogue provides several benefits to human sciences, since it allows multiple points of view; however, developing research through this dialogue requires managing several arguments and concepts. So, this situation presents itself as interesting and challenging.

In this sense, considering the funds of identity proposed by Esteban and Moll, in my comments I attempted to explore alternative approaches by dialoguing with concepts and arguments from the psychological, linguistics, and educational studies. As a whole, funds of identity can be viewed as a very provocative way to think about how sociocultural experience produces subjectivity, and for this reason, more theoretical elaboration and empirical research are recommended. Future studies to further the theoretical discussion are crucial to deepen on the possibilities, implications, and limits of the concept. Besides that, as more empirical researches on funds of identity are developed, the empirical analyses will become more conceptual and explicative. Consequently, this allows deepening the theoretical elaboration by bringing other concepts into discussion and creates opportunities to explore the concept of funds of identity in its complexity and dynamicity.

Footnotes

Acknowledgement

I am grateful to Kevin Carrieri for the writing review of this commentary.

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP, Brazil; grant number 2012/13905-9).

Author biography

Ana Lucia Horta Nogueira received her MA and PhD from the University of Campinas, at Brazil. She is currently an assistant professor at University of São Paulo at Ribeirão Preto, where she teaches and develops studies on Educational Psychology. In a cultural-historical psychology approach, her research interests concern issues related to human development, teacher training, and schooling.

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