La construcción social del socioconstruccionismo: retrospectiva y perspectivas

Abstract

In order to strike a brief balance of social constructionism present state, we sketch, in the first place, the historical conditions of its emergence, getting back to the “crisis” in social psychology, and to the epistemological and social causes, which originated that crisis. Secondly, we analyze the reasons which account for its rapid diffusion and consolidation in the field of the discipline, underlining, among other factors, its configuration as a “movement”, in stead of a theoretical body with a strong internal consistency and clearly delimited boundaries. Its proximity to some of the most innovative trends of contemporary thought, and its connections with recent social changes, are emphasized as well to this respect. In the third place, we mention some of the positive effects that this orientation has promoted inside a discipline, which had no other choice than to enlarge considerably its tolerance threshold toward some unorthodox research practices, in the fourth place some critical points against canstructionism are made especially around its excesive laxity and its loss of critical sensibility. Finally, we focus upon two questions wich requires to be urgently token into consideration, namely, the negative effects that social constructionist focalization on discursivity has produced upon itself, and the neglect of the political dimension of its own theoretical and practical work.