Skip to main content

Cultural Meaning—Generalized or Particularized?

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Symbolic Universes in Time of (Post)Crisis

Abstract

One of the main problems in culture-oriented studies is related to a fundamental paradox. On the one hand, we aim to achieve a general understanding of the characteristics of a people, a country or a certain part of the world. On the other hand, cultural differences should also be traceable on a micro-level in terms of the culture in an organization, a group or a family. Most of the cross-cultural research ends up in the former trench, and fails to say anything about the latter. The Re.Cri.Re. project aims to unite these perspectives by applying two different approaches. After an analysis of the use of the semiological terms in-absentia and in-praesentia, this author concludes that the Re.Cri.Re. project tends to fall in the same trench as most of the cross-cultural research, quite simply because cultural meaning is still defined as generalized meaning. This paper argues that the cultural meaning has to be defined as particularized meaning.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Cole, M. (1996). Cultural psychology: A once and future discipline. Cambridge MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • de Saussure, F. (2011). Course in general linguistics, Trans. W. Baskin, New York: Columbia University Press (original work in French 1916).

    Google Scholar 

  • Douglas, M., & Wildavsky, A. (1983). Risk and culture: An essay on the selection of technological and environmental dangers. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hofstede, G. (2001). Culture’s consequences: Comparing values, behaviors, institutions, and organizations across nations (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • ISBEM (2017). TR Synchronic Analysis. [Scientific report. Re.Cri.Re. Consortium. Deliverable 3.2.] http://www.recrire.eu/documents.

  • Klempe, H., Granskaya, J., & Rundmo, T. (2009). Redefining culture in traffic safety—Russia and Norway compared. In: 11th European Congress of Psychology, Invited symposium on Cultural Differences in Traffic safety and Behaviour, Oslo, July 7–10, 2009.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klempe, H., Liu, B., & Rundmo, T. (2013). Human values in cross-cultural psychology. Politics and Society, 1(1), 130–142.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lonner, W. L., & Adamopoulos, J. (1997). Culture as antecedent to behavior. In J. W. Berry, Y. H. Portinga, & J. Panday (Eds.), Handbook of cross-cultural psychology: Volume 1: Theory and method, second edition (pp. 43–48). Boston, MS: Allyn & Bacon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mead, M. (1928). Coming of age in Samoa: A psychological study of primitive youth for western civilization. New York: William Morrow.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rundmo, T., Granskaya, J., & Klempe, H. (2012). Traffic culture as symbol exchange—A cross-country comparison of Russia and Norway. Safety Science, 50, 1261–1267.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Salvatore, S., & Venuleo, C. (2013). Field and dynamic nature of sensemaking: Theoretical and methodological implications. Papers on Social Representations, 22, 21.1–21.41.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sjöberg, L. (1996). A discussion of the limitations of the psychometric and cultural theory approaches to risk perception. Radiation Protection Dosimetry, 68, 219–225.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sjöberg, L. (2000a). Factors in risk perception. Risk Analysis, 20(1), 1–11.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sjöberg, L. (2000b). Specifying factors in radiation risk perception. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 41(2), 169–174.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Toomela, A. (2000). Activity theory is a dead end for cultural-historical psychology. Culture and Psychology, 6(3), 353–364.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Windelband, W. (1873). Ueber die Gewissheit der Erkenntniss: eine psychologischerkenntnisstheoretische Studie [On the certainty of knowledge: A study of theoretical psychology]. Berlin: Henschel.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sven Hroar Klempe .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Klempe, S.H. (2019). Cultural Meaning—Generalized or Particularized?. In: Salvatore, S., Fini, V., Mannarini, T., Valsiner, J., Veltri, G. (eds) Symbolic Universes in Time of (Post)Crisis. Culture in Policy Making: The Symbolic Universes of Social Action. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19497-0_12

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19497-0_12

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-19496-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-19497-0

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics