How to Transform into Goddesses and Elephants: Exploring the Potentiality of the Dialogical Self

This article uses examples of shape-shifting, that is, the process whereby people believe themselves to transform into another being, to demonstrate that cultural contexts do not modify only the content of the dialogical self and how it is methodologically approached. It will be shown that shape-shifting in its respective cultural context modifies the mechanisms of the dialogical self. Drawing on ethnographies of modern witches in the UK and shape-shifters of the Kuranko people from Sierra Leone, I will argue that shape-shifting is a process whereby an external position temporarily transforms into a dominating internal position which expropriates all other internal positions. Ultimately, the position becomes external again and stabilizes itself—along with its associated positions—within the Personal Position Repertoire by continuous practice. Finally, it will be argued that new knowledge in the form of ‘poetic wisdom’ may be gained through shape-shifting.