Abstract
Families are social units that expand in time (across generations) and space (as a geographically distributed sub-structures of wider kinship networks). Understanding of intergenerational family relations thus requires conceptualization of communication processes that take place within a small collective of persons linked with one another by a flexible social network. Within such networks, Peripheral Communication Patterns set the stage for direct everyday life activities within the family context. Peripheral Communication Patterns are conditions where one family network member (A) communicates manifestly with another member (B) with the aim of bringing the communicative message to the third member (C) who is present but is not explicitly designated as the manifest addressee of the intended message. Inclusion of physically non-present members of the family network (elders living elsewhere, deceased relatives, ancestors’ spirits, etc.) in efforts that use Peripheral Communication Patterns creates a highly redundant social context for human development over life course which is the basis for family members’ resilience during critical life events. Examples from the social contexts of Greenland, Italy and India will be analyzed to arrive at a general model of the role of peripheral communication as the core of intergenerational value transfer processes.
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Notes
This is a common experience for researchers in the field where they can find respondents just turn away in silence during an interview when they are unable or unwilling to grasp the situation. In other societies such a strategy might be seen as downright rude and offensive, but among a people where what you say to another person is always under scrutiny for appropriateness..
In Hindi pronouns, there is an interesting possibility that the equivalent of the first person plural ‘we’ can also be applied to the person herself. Person reference vocabulary in Indian languages provides the substance for several critical opportunities for saving face and not directly addressing the other, strategies that are perhaps essential for maintaining individual agency in a dense social setting. These intricacies are mostly hidden from the light of academic analysis primarily because they are so hard to grasp and investigate, and also because we have mostly been guided by the study of problems emerging from cultures with better developed industries of psychological research. Such a language exchange would be completely missed by a person who has not been socialised as a native, and would seem so commonplace to an insider that it is likely, in either instance, to receive little academic attention.
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Acknowledgments
The preparation of this paper was supported by INSIDE Research Unit of the University of Luxembourg, and by Niels Bohr Professorship Centre of Cultural Psychology to the first author. The writing of this paper was facilitated by funding from the Brazilian Ministry of Education (CAPES/PVE), for a research visit to Salvador, Bahia, provided to the third author. The fourth author benefitted greatly from the funding by AAGE V. Jensens Fund that made it possible to participate in academic activities.
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Marsico, G., Chaudhary, N., Valsiner, J. et al. Maintenance of Family Networks: Centrality of Peripheral Communication. Psychol Stud 60, 185–192 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12646-015-0308-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12646-015-0308-8