Abstract
This paper considers mental processes unfolding during humans’ movement in a foreign environment and aims to overcome theoretical discrepancies concerning culture and acculturation between sociocultural anthropology and cross-cultural psychology under the frame of cultural psychology. I propose to perceive culture as a multi-self-centered semiotic field, which is populated by signs and meanings, necessarily emphasizing its heterogeneity and incoherence. Cultures have hazy boundaries and are embedded into the wider web of meanings. In fact, there is one big global culture and all humans are involved in mediating it through intersubjective interactions. Further, the term proculturation is used to fill the gaps left by mainstream acculturation research, which has been mainly oriented on measuring ontologized trait-like characteristics in terms of bidimensional mechanic relationship between cultures and related correlations. Namely, proculturation specifically reflects real-life human experiences and the role of (inter)subjectivity in the process of adaptation in emigration or elsewhere in any unfamiliar environment. Most importantly proculturation implies triadic semiotic relations and the possibility of the creation of novel fusions of meanings, by mixing various ingredients in the process of mediation between familiar and unfamiliar ideas and experiences. Proculturation is catalytically conditioned by references to temporal dimensions and essentially is ever-continuing process.
Keywords
The most ironic thing about acculturation research is that despite aiming to reflect the process of adaptation and changes at psychological or sociological levels, classic Berry-inspired approaches actually have not involved developmental ideas in any sense. Moreover, acculturation research lacks theoretical conceptualization of human experience in emigration as such (Chirkov, 2009). Cross-cultural psychologists have been disregarding developments in psychological anthropology and cultural psychology. For example, cross-cultural psychologists use the term of culture in an outdated essentialized way, which has been abandoned in anthropology altogether (Waldram, 2009) and all the more so, in cultural psychology (Rosa & Valsiner, 2018; Valsiner, 2000, 2009, 2014, 2017a). Waldram (2009) indicates that the term acculturation shared fate of its predecessor term culture in sociocultural anthropology; however, surprisingly, it still maintains huge popularity particularly in cross-cultural psychological research (Andreouli, 2013; Arends-Tóth & Vijver, 2006; Beckstead, 2010; Berry, 2005, 2008; Bhatia, 2002; Chirkov, 2009; Lebedeva, Tatarko, & Berry, 2016; Rudmin, 2003, 2009; Sam & Berry, 2010a).
Acculturation is predominantly defined as changes that follow the meeting of different cultures (Redfield, Linton, & Herskovits, 1936) at the individual and collective levels. More simply it is also defined as a process of the second culture acquisition (Rudmin, 2009). Gűrsoy and Kunt (2018), as well as most scholars of acculturation (Arends-Tóth & Vijver, 2006; Berry, 2005; Sam & Berry, 2010a; Van de Vijver, Blommaert, Gkoumasi, & Stogianni, 2015), explicitly or implicitly share and follow these definitions. This definition inadequately assumes the theoretical/practical possibility of bilateral interactions only between two cultures and omits options where many cultures might get into contact at the same time. Actually, exactly the latter option is the case in pluralistic societies all over the world (Doucerain, Dere, & Ryder, 2013). However, it comes that acculturation is perceived as dyadic semiotic interrelation between the pairs of distinctive entities, which excludes the possibility of qualitative transformation (Tateo, 2016, 2018; Valsiner, 2014) and, respectively, does not assume or allow developmental dynamics. So, we got an odd situation where the term designated to reflect developmental processes, actually, excludes the possibility of development.
This paper aims to reconsider and further elaborate key terms associated with the meaningful human experiences of meeting foreign cultural elements from the cultural psychological perspective (see Valsiner, 2014, 2017a) and to decrease theoretical gap with cultural (psychological) anthropology. I assume that the first task is to ask ourselves if we still need the term of culture at all and if yes, in what sense.
If there is culture at all?
Individual meets and learns only some signs and ideas which are present in the heritage sociocultural area or in emigration. Any person has unique experience of enculturation (Herskovits, 1949), as much as each human is placed in particular social and cultural positions and has particular status, affordances and generally, conditions for living/growth. Living conditions are far from being unified for members of any society. No individual would ever be able to learn fully any culture, even where s/he was born. A person is able to make sense of only those pieces of culture which are available for him/her. So, no human is fully immersed in any culture and culture could never be regarded as isomorphic to him/her.
Moreover, internal or external boundaries of each cultural area are blurred and are far from being straightforward. There are many places where diverse societal traditions are present next to each other and create some kind of a fusion of cultures, e.g. Toronto, Canada (Doucerain et al., 2013). Doucerain indicates that it is inadequate to talk only about the existence of home and host cultures, as modern pluralistic environments put individual in front of the various cultural elements. Diversity allows and even provokes hybridization of different ideas. It is widely known that most ideas and technologies are spread between cultures by diffusion throughout the human history (Haviland, Prins, McBride, & Walrath, 2010). Noticeably, most cultures share basic norms like particular ways of prohibitions on violence, theft, sexual life, and other common life issues. It would be extremely difficult to find any group which would have been consisted of truly unique elements and would have been completely detached from other societies.
Actually, the sense of uniqueness and boundedness of cultures and societies is mainly based on imagined beliefs of own (groups’) distinctiveness (Anderson & Benedict, 2006). I assume that we should conceive all cultures as fusions of diverse ideas. It is not as an entity, but a semiotic field with hazy boundaries, which is populated by diverse signs/ideas. Each group has particular signs which lie on top of the hierarchical meaning system and serve as a symbolic signifier/marker of its uniqueness. For example, requirement of the conservativeness of female sexuality in certain traditional societies serves as an identity marker (Gamsakhurdia, 2017; Mernissi, 1982).
The term of culture is an abstraction and obtains agency only through human activity. These are people who make sense of their experiences and signs – in other way they would not have any sense (Brinkmann, 2016; Valsiner, 2014). Essentially, each person creates own subjectively constructed meaning system, which could be labeled as “personal culture.” However, obviously, personal cultures are being co-constructed through interaction and communication, so they are intersubjective and interpersonal in their nature. Sociocultural universe is composed of systematic net of (inter)personal meaning systems or as I call them: (inter)personal cultures. So, the proper way to consider culture is to conceive it as a multi-self-centered and dynamically co-constructive open system.
However, we should remember that despite that a person comes to be in the center of the continuous construction of sociocultural processes, interaction can never be unilateral, on the opposite, it always creates transitive dialogical hierarchy (Valsiner, 2014). No person is self-sufficient during semiotic activity as the latter process is always partially conditioned by various catalytic conditions, like semiotic resources (Zittoun, 2012, 2018), means for (self)guidance, and for facilitating adaptation, which are provided by sociocultural environment.
Unfortunately, the role of the individual and its relation to social (group) level processes has been confusingly absent in acculturation research (see, e.g. Gűrsoy & Kunt, 2018) and need further consideration.
Experience is interpersonal, however, always idiosyncratic
Mainstream acculturation studies often claim that they are interested in (1) “psychological” acculturation, which is supposed to signify individual experiences, as well as in (2) “social” acculturation, which implies adaptation at the group level. However, in fact, the former goal is almost never met through their research (Doucerain et al., 2013), as much as accent is predominantly made on the latter aspect. Acculturation studies are concentrated on identifying desired/ideal superficial optional attitudes—rejection or acceptance—toward imagined “home” and “host” cultures and disregard real-life experiences (Navas et al., 2005). Gűrsoy and Kunt (2018) provide another example of such approach indicating on the acculturation orientations of their respondents, without reporting on their personal feelings, thought, doubts, or hopes regarding their daily experiences. Respondents are asked about their attitudes, not about their real experiences. Equalization of attitudes with actions is clearly inadequate. Boski (2008) states that the widespread popularity of Berry’s integration strategy does not inform us neither on the respondents’ real bicultural awareness, neither on their real-life experiences of bicultural identity, but only on general group attitudes.
Lebedeva et al. (2016) have gone even further in their recent study where they defined “psychological adaptation” merely as “feeling well,” that is measured with self-report type formal questionnaire. Adaptation here is perceived in an oversimplified way, as something like a (static) trait—either you feel well and so you are adapted or not. This particular study is just an example of dominating research approach (Chirkov, 2009; Doucerain et al., 2013; Rudmin, 2003) which is based on Berry’s highly praised bidimensional approach. The latter does not allow reflection of meaningful transformations in migrants’ selves or, respectively, in wider society. Mental elements or signs, such as identities or values, are understood as ontological entities which could be counted quantitatively. Ontologization of mental phenomena is widely criticized elsewhere (Chirkov, 2009; Gamsakhurdia, 2018a; Märtsin, 2010a, 2010b; Märtsin & Mahmoud, 2012; Valsiner, 2017a).
Moreover, Lebedeva et al. (2016) openly disregard the possibility of interindividual variance as they state that integration strategy of acculturation implies the expectation that “
Acculturation as a term has become firmly associated with quantitative studies which are interested only in macro-societal processes. In the latter sense, Berry’s theoretical framework of general orientations might be useful, but it became inadequate in terms of reflecting individual experiences. It is obvious that phenomenological experiences have been sadly absent from acculturation studies. Further, disregard of phenomenological experience is directly related with the abandonment of the self’s role in the adaptation.
Various researchers have already indicated on the need of the meaningful reconsideration of acculturation or even on the need for the introduction of new terms (Chirkov, 2009; Waldram, 2009; Weinreich, 2009). I assume that it is reasonable to use Berry’s scheme as a general framework for describing processes at the macro level (see Doucerain et al., 2013); however, I propose to refer to the newer term of proculturation in order to reflect individuals’ substantial and idiosyncratic experiences in a foreign environment.
Proculturation is part of development
Life in emigration is a very specific experience; however, it is still part of human development and shares its general regularities. Emigrants face alien environment which is predominantly filled up by foreign signs. They are strongly challenged to make sense of unknown and to make unfamiliar familiar.
However, is it always simple to identify what is foreign and what is native? The perception of “nativeness” and “foreignness” of any sign depends on the specificity of context and personal interpretation. It is rather dependent on the familiarity of a particular sign and person’s relation to it, than on its belonginess to a particular culture (heritage or foreign). There are signs in native culture which might be perceived as foreign and also, there might be signs in foreign culture which might be perceived as familiar/own. Signs might change meaning and some meanings might be reassigned to different/other signs. For example, the sense of home(ness) is a subjectively constructed sign and is far from being fixed to any particular place—it might change depending on human’s semiotic activity (Valsiner, 2000), that is the process of making sense of experience(ing). Home is where the self feels at home, nowhere else. Human development naturally involves the infinite process of making unfamiliar familiar.
So, emigration is the field where semiotic mediation might be intensified due to the change of a living environment; however, it does not necessarily imply mind-blowing jump from one radically different cultural planet to another. Due to the intense globalization and spread of online mass media, information and technologies are shared so easily and so widely, that it is highly unlikely that any emigrant can find any host society/culture, which would be totally new/unfamiliar to him/her. Most emigrants are already acquainted with potential host societies, at least up to some level.
Proculturation does not have clear starting or end-points
Upon arriving in a foreign country, each emigrant possesses some knowledge about oneself, homeland, and the host country. People who leave their homeland have own reasons and are led by particular expectations. Emigration is seldom, if ever, an accidental experience. Mostly, people strive for better lives, for themselves and for their relatives. Even refugees, as soon as they are forced to move out from their homes are mostly aspiring for specific locations and try to avoid others. Preference is habitually given to the economically richer countries—G20 states—which are main destinations for most emigrants from all over the world.
Many people intentionally gather information on the host country (long) before moving there. Not to mention the fact that classes of history and geography also provide knowledge about surrounding world to pupils of secondary schools all over the world. And, even if we theoretically imagine that a particular emigrant does not have any practical information on the host country, still, s/he imagines something about it based on his knowledge about the world in general. Semiotically, it does not even matter if that knowledge is factual or imagined. So, I assume that a dialog and preadaptation with the host society starts even before emigration actually happens.
Preadaptation implies the establishment of meaningful relations with the foreign society and making sense of information that people possess about the host environment, awhile before setting foot on its soil. Choice or preference to move to the particular environment is itself the result of (pre)adaptive mediation. For example, Gűrsoy and Kunt (2018) provide data about respondents who had made same choices to migrate to Cyprus for studies; however, each of them had had specific reasons and expectations concerning life there. One respondent flew away from war, another was attracted by similarity between his native and Cypriot culture, etc. (Gűrsoy & Kunt, 2018). Respondents made choice based on particular cultural characteristics that they attributed to university in Famagusta and to Cyprus in general. This destination was regarded as appropriate for achievement of their immediate purposes and for achieving of their dreams in ZDD (Gamsakhurdia, 2018b). Gűrsoy and Kunt’s (2018) study clearly indicates on humans’ intentionality (Tateo, 2016; Valsiner, 2014) and future directedness (Valsiner, 2017a) which drives proculturation before and during emigration.
However, even after preadaption, emigration is still a rupturing experience (Zittoun, 2016) which implies the leaving of “comfort zone,” daily routine and helps people in looking at their native cultures with a “fresh look,” from another/new angle. Living abroad might initiate and intensify self-reflection. A person, while being in emigration, might more actively and meaningfully reevaluate and reconsider his personal habits, values, life-style, and life-goals. Sometimes, people even deliberately move or travel to foreign countries for getting new sensations, feelings, and discoveries, about themselves and the world in general.
Emigration is a personal experience. Each emigrant is a human with real feelings, thoughts, and needs which they need to realize in life. Each of them has fears, hopes, and dreams they follow. People anticipate their personal development in a short-term zone of proximal development (Bruner, 1984; Valsiner & Van der Veer, 2014) and also have dream-like goals projected on the zone of distant development (Gamsakhurdia, 2018b). Anticipated goals and expectations (Tateo, 2016; Valsiner, 2017a) serve as a catalytic factor during the semiotic mediation of alien signs or during re-mediation of familiar ones. So, emigrant comes with particular “mental baggage”—expectations and knowledge—which influence the nature of further development of mental activities in a host country.
Life-goals serve as equifinality points (Sato, Hidaka, & Fukuda, 2009; Satō, Mori, & Valsiner, 2016) in the process of human development, e.g. to become a professional, to find a good job, to be a happy person, etc. Emigration is one among other possible choices/lines of development which could lead to the equifinal points. In their pursuit of goals, people may emigrate to the place A, B, C, or may not emigrate at all and stay at homeland (option D). So, here we have not even Bi, but multi-furcation point as ways leading to the equifinality points are some times more than two.
In emigration, semiotic mediation of foreign signs develops in relation with the parallel process of imagining what might have happened if a person had made choice in favor of other options while being at the multi-furcation point. Other lines of possible development serve as a reference point during the evaluation of ongoing life-processes, e.g. Palestinian emigrant student’s motivation to live abroad to learn English language rises if he knows that there is still a war in his homeland and he needs to find a job abroad in order to get better chances for survival (Gűrsoy & Kunt, 2018).
So, it is important to understand that emigration is an experience that starts at a multi-furcation point which is preceded by a personal (pre)history and heads toward reaching end goals that are equifinality points in terms of trajectory-equifinality model (Satō et al., 2016). Proculturation implies creative synthesis of all available ideas, through making sense of realized and possible developments in relation with the web of familiar (native or not) and unfamiliar (foreign or native) signs.
Nevertheless, it is important to remember that not all experiences are meaningful for human development from those that people undergo abroad. Some experiences in emigration might be perceived meaningless, or ignored—inhibited (Valsiner, 2013, 2014). The deepness of proculturation depends on humans’ knowledge, experience, and expectations concerning the particular unfamiliar sign, which is being mediated. The task of proculturation studies should be the identification of those particular experiences (mediation of particular unfamiliar signs) which contribute to the significant reconstruction of the self.
Self-construction through proculturation
Development of the self and I-positions in emigration, as well as elsewhere, progresses in accordance with the following assumptions on: A. irreversibility of human development throughout the life-trajectory. B. Future-directness of humanity. C. Openness of meaning (sociocultural) systems (Branco & Valsiner, 1997; Valsiner, 2017b).
The self and I-positions are subjective constructions which exist in dynamic stability. The self always locates himself or herself in a particular temporal position somewhere between the past and the future. The self is in the constant process of reconstruction and is defined by those mediative processes which develop in each particular moment of human life (Bauman, 2001; Märtsin, 2010a).
We can conceive I-position as a semiotic sign, while identification process might be contemplated as its semiosis. I-position is a sign in the making. It could be clarified as a position about myself (Hermans, 1999; Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010; Hermans, Konopka, Oosterwegel, & Zomer, 2017), like: “I as Georgian emigrant”-I as A and is being formed in relation to I as a Non-A-“I as not Spanish”. The process of identification here is imagined to be happening during Georgian person’s emigration in Spain. I-positions (Sign A) form complementary semiotic relations (Tateo, 2016) with opposing I-positions (Non A-s) and are being formed in contradiction to them.
Semiotic field of emigration, populated predominantly by Non-A-s, might provide materials which could become the source for inspiration for the redefinition of the A (own “old” identity). Emigration is the ideal/active field where the secondness (Peirce, n.d.) of signs—I-positions—becomes salient in relation to the resistance of host cultures. Identification of I-positions through proculturation constructs and reconstructs symbolic boundaries between complementary signs—A and Non-A—and should be conceived as triadic semiotic process. Identity is built on a symbolic line which enables “inclusive separation” (Valsiner, 2014, 2017b) between emigrants’ home (A) and host (Non-A) cultures.
Proculturation is oriented and is expected to result in the breaking of initial opposition between A (native identity) and Non-A (host identity) by means of constructive mixture of opposites and the creation of a new higher level sign. Constructive mixture leads to the appearance of the new form of identity—I as B. New (B) identity is still not Non-A; however, it is neither A anymore. It is something more than any of previously existing signs were. For example, Georgian person, after emigrating to Germany, constructs new fusion supra-identity—I as a world citizen—which solves the opposition between Georgianness and Germanness by creating higher level categorization (Gamsakhurdia, 2019). From the individual (psychological) perspective, an emigrant mediates in-between the semiotic fields of home and host cultures, never leaving or grasping (completely) any of them, moving ahead on the curvilinear line of development.
Thus, proculturation in emigration implies creative synthesis of unfamiliar signs in relation with familiar signs in the context of past and anticipated experiences and goals. Unlike acculturation, which implies development through orthogonal dimensions in direction or away from so-called heritage and foreign cultures, proculturation is a systemic process of the self’s curvilinear development and results in a construction of new fusions of meanings.
People construct blend of meanings through specific activities and are fueled by particular drives. People not only internalize experience but also have more or less strong urge for externalization in the environment (Valsiner, 2014), which facilitates constructive interaction with past, present, and expected environments. Figure 1 illustrates this process (Gamsakhurdia, in press).
Curvilinearization of binary linear oppositions (Gamsakhurdia, In press).
The self-out
Proculturative development is driven not only by the influence of foreign external stimuli, but also by strive for self-presentation into the environment (Gamsakhurdia, 2018b). The urge for the self-presentation stimulates individuals’ interaction with the environment and is meaningfully influenced by humans’ emigrant status.
Distinctive self-presentation is much easier for emigrants comparably to local people as they are naturally distinguished by their status (of emigrant). They may tend or even might be expected to demonstrate elements of their native culture in order to present themselves and/or to make an impression on the representatives of host society. For example, they may cook a traditional dish for dinner and let hosts to taste it or to wear traditional dresses. The mere fact of being abroad/away could create/add an additional emotional sentiment/value to the native cultural elements. Emigrants feel represented themselves personally by presenting signs signifying their “heritage” sociocultural identity as s/he associates himself/herself with it.
However, it is not possible for humans to preserve elements of their lifestyle, values, or any other element of native cultural elements in the same/unaltered manner as they existed before leaving home. It becomes impossible due to the unavailability of particular conditions and due to the appearance of new circumstances. For example, Georgian emigrants cannot cook Georgian dish Khachapuri in a traditional way anywhere outside Georgia, due to the unavailability of specific Georgian cheese (Imeruli) in foreign markets, which is an essential ingredient for that dish. So, they do not have any other choice but to use Western European sorts of cheese instead, which leads to the appearance of the new version of “Europeanized” Khachapuri—the new form of this dish (which is essentially a new sign). So, this is another example when proculturation leads to the creative mixture of elements representing home and host cultures.
Intensification of reflection or presentation of native cultural elements by no means could be interpreted as the separation orientation (as it is conceived by John Berry) as it is oriented on the interaction with the host society. In fact, native cultural elements serve as semiotic resources (Zittoun, 2018) and are used in order to establish contacts with foreigners. It is neither an expression of integration orientation as it leads to the meaningful reconstruction of native cultural elements in light of the new conditions and is being mixtured with local cultural/environmental elements. Proculturation implies continuous transformation of person’s meaning system in relation with foreign signs. All these processes lead to the reconstruction of the self and identities.
So, we can see that there are many catalytic conditions involved in the development of proculturation, which make that process systemic and dialogical.
In the systematically related relational system, there is no process which might influence only one of its elements (Bertalanffy, 1969)—development changes system as a whole, altogether. Emigration, in particular, is a bilateral (two-sided) semiotic movement where emigrants transform personally and contribute in the developmental processes of the host cultures at the same time. So, an emigrant’s self changes himself/herself and changes the host society at the same through the interaction with it.
Macro context matters
Host countries may differ in having dissimilar social, cultural, and political environments which posit specific challenges for foreigners. Some are more similar to emigrants’ cultures, some more different, some have more open policies, some more conservative, etc. For example, Monoethnic Japan with its tough emigrational policy is much more complicated place for adaptation comparably to Germany which openly builds multicultural society and has much more liberal emigrational policy. We can see that in some societies emigrants do not have much choice concerning the course of their actions due to the restrictive policies. The role of the attitudes of dominant/majorities toward emigrants and generally, the importance of macro context for understanding particular micro-level processes is beyond doubt (Doucerain et al., 2013).
Gűrsoy and Kunt (2018) provide only superficial data on their respondents and essentially leave their personal stories without meaningful scrutiny. Information on their native macro cultural context is provided only about Palestinian respondent, while background of respondents from Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Uyghur region (China) is absent. That makes impossible to clarify the importance and meaning of the specific cultural background of different respondents which come from such different countries as Azerbaijan, Turkey, Palestine, and Uighur region. It would be very useful to distinguish emigrants from Turkey and Azerbaijan from others, as their native language (Turkish) is very widespread in the location of their emigration (Northern Cyprus), while Palestinians and Chinese respondents were coming from a totally foreign and distinct language environment. The other interesting point is that respondents have different life-goals which influence their life in present. I assume that these differences in respondents’ background and future expectations could serve as a catalytic condition during their proculturation (Gűrsoy & Kunt, 2018).
However, it is important to bear in mind that beyond similarities between societies and personal biographies there will always exist objective and subjective factors which ensure uniqueness of each person’s proculturation in emigration. Proculturation is always a personal experience.
Conclusions
Foreignness possesses specific allure. People intentionally move around the world since unknown times to taste something new or just to find better or more interesting lives. Social sciences have been challenged to explain what do people make of interact with “other”-s and foreign cultures for centuries. This question is directly related with other fundamental questions like: what is culture? How the self and I-positions are constructed? Might they change? What is the role of culture in the construction of self? How do people change in emigration? This paper attempts to contribute in answering on these questions.
There are different answers on these questions in different disciplines of social sciences. Sociocultural anthropologists almost completely abandoned the term culture as deem it has connotation of essentialization and ontologization of mental phenomena. Sociocultural anthropologists prime purpose is to avoid unfounded generalizations while describing societies (Abu-Lughod, 1991; Waldram, 2009). Cross-cultural psychologists, on the opposite actively embrace “culture” and even regard it as a mighty independent variable which establishes relation and conditions conceptually separated individual. The truth is somewhere in the middle.
Culture consists of the net of meanings (Geertz, 1973; Jahoda, 2012; Valsiner, 2014). Culture is like a symbolic field or reference system which provides humans with necessary semiotic resources necessary for the holding of meaning-making processes. However, those meanings are continuously (re)constructed by persons through relational and interpersonal communication. These are humans who make cultural elements “alive.” Culture comes to be created by a multi-self-centered system which consists of dynamically interrelated agents. So, the self makes sense of oneself, life, and surrounding environment in relation with other agents based on his knowledge, experience, and future experiences. Person-centeredness of meaning-making processes results in heterogeneity of cultural space. However, we should remember that a person always acts, thinks, or feels in relation to the known or imagined sign system—the existence of cultural system (e. g. semiotic resources) is necessary condition for the self to be constructed at all. Such approach solves anthropologists’ fears of essentialization and overgeneralizing labeling and at the same time allows us to avoid excessive theoretical fragmentation/individualization of common sociocultural space.
The term acculturation shares fate with culture. It has been abandoned by most sociocultural anthropologists (Waldram, 2009) due to the same reasons as the term culture. However, acculturation research has achieved huge popularity in cross-cultural psychology. For the moment, Berry-inspired bidimensional models dominate mainstream acculturation study (Chirkov, 2009; Gamsakhurdia, 2018a; Rudmin, 2003) and Berry-inspired studies are oriented on identifying if people accept or reject heritage or host culture while being in emigration. Gűrsoy and Kunt’s (2018) study is just another example of it. This approach has been widely criticized for: 1. Ignoring existence of pluralistic societies where people deal not only with two, but diverse cultural ideas at the same time (Doucerain et al., 2013). 2. Failing to reflect real-life experiences, while calculating only desires and attitudes of respondents (Chirkov, 2009; Doucerain et al., 2013; Waldram, 2009). 3. Disregarding interindividual variety among social groups while making overgeneralizing deductions (Gamsakhurdia, 2018a) 4. Oversimplification of the term of psychological adaptation, which has been defined as “feeling well” without exploring nature of meaning of human experiences. 5. Disregarding the self’s role in the construction of sociocultural processes. Excessive emphasize on group-level generalization.
Proculturation is an active subjective mediation of foreign elements in relation with existing knowledge, experience, and future expectations. This process always develops in a particular temporal/historical and sociocultural context. Proculturation results in the creation of fusions of new meanings, which are dialectical synthesis (Valsiner & Van der Veer, 2014) of priorly unfamiliar and familiar, foreign and heritage ideas and leads to the meaningful transformation of the self. However, as the self has “constructive urge for self-presentation” (Gamsakhurdia, 2018b) those created new meanings are shared with environment and create catalytic condition for its further reconstruction. The self drives proculturation; however, s/he is indissolubly engaged in intersubjective interactions and acts only in relation with existing semiotic system. Proculturation is dialogical in its essence. Proculturation is encouraged by the urge for self-presentation.
Dialogical adaptation implies triadic semiotic interrelation which leads to the curvilinear development of the self and allows innovation. Unlike acculturation, which is oriented on measuring of dehumanized ontologized traits, which does not have anything to do with actual human experiences. Emigration provides semiotic field which we do not belong to (Non-A) and represents vast field of ideas and meanings which is available for our interpretation (Tateo, 2016, 2018; Valsiner, 2014). Emigration in this sense is an ocean of opportunities for creation of new fusions of meanings and self-transformation.
So, proculturation allows to reflect plurality of sociocultural spaces and brings person-centered intersubjective human experiences into the intercultural psychological studies. That is one example of bridging fragmented branches of cultural studies under the interdisciplinary umbrella of cultural psychology.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.