An old thinker to resignify a psychosocial category: George Mead and socialization

Abstract

In this article I pretend to provide conceptual lines to resignify socialization as a psychosocial category, from a productive perspective in order to situate the comprehension of subjectivation processes. I will review some reductionist and linear explanations found in certain approaches to socialization, and provide arguments to say that intersubjectivity is a prolific level to develop comprehension categories that include different dimensions. In this direction, I take into consideration some of George Mead´s psychosocial categories, given the fact his work is central in proposing an ontology of intersubjectivity. There are two main issues that I try to articulate throughout the analyses of Mead's categories: i. the symbolic process in which a person's constitution arise through communicative exchanges at intersubjective action. ii. the plurality of perspectives and behavior expectancies that operate as a reference to actions and allows, from my point of view, to conceptualize socialization as a conflictive process of social differentiation.