Sociocultural Psychology on the Regional Scale: A Case Study of a Hill

This brief presents the case study of a hill in Czech Republic (Říp) and its region, and contributes to theorization in sociocultural psychology on three points, along three current debates.

First, it contributes to the exploration of the mutual constitution of the lifecourse and of history, uses a distinction between socio-, micro- and ontogenesis, and argues that a focus on a delimited geographical space enables to better observe the processes by which history, daily situated interactions and courses of life shape each other. Second, in doing so, it sketches an understanding of the role of the material, spatial and semiotic specificities of landscapes in human development. Especially, it identifies some of the processes by which redundant dynamic patterns present in the environment may participate to the guidance of human experience. Third, it expands the reflection on case study construction and generalization. On the one side, it participates to a current debate in cultural psychology on the dynamics of generalization from single cases; on the other, it also dialogues with a more general reflection in the social sciences on social dynamics at the scale of small regions.

Altogether, this brief is a first attempt to examine jointly these questions at the scale of a small region, a unique natural laboratory of social and psychological change. It will be of interest to researchers as well as graduate students in the fields of cultural and sociocultural psychology, cognitive psychology, and the social sciences.