Abstract
Incorporating the notion of complexity from recent approaches into disaster research, we argue for a theory of coping that transcends the universalist and individualist assumptions of coping theory. We locate this approach in cultural psychology and base our reconceptualization of coping processes on the core assumption of a permeating co-constitution of person and context. Context contains notions of material, symbolic, and social surroundings, whereas the person is always embedded in multiple contexts simultaneously. Agency, therefore, is engendered and inhibited in person–context relations. Instead of developing yet another coping model of universal psychological functioning, we opt to replace causal assumptions by referential relations and argue for an interpretative research approach to coping in context, one that integrates existing coping models as heuristic devices. Drawing from the insights of disaster research, we further broaden our understanding of coping and conclude by presenting coping as complex material-symbolic, cognitive-embodied, and individual-social processes that are contingent on the micro- and macrodynamics of the individual life course, community processes, and global histories.
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Notes
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The microsystem (e.g., family and neighborhood), the mesosystem (the interaction of two microsystem environments), the exosystem, the macrosystem (the larger cultural context), and the chronosystem (the context of passing time). These events may have an impact on a particular birth cohort.
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Local idioms of distress are considered to be dependent on local knowledge; they are viewed as “those particular ways in which members of sociocultural groups convey affliction. Idioms vary across cultures, depending on the salient metaphors and popular traditions that pattern the human biological capacity for experiencing distress” (Hinton and Lewis-Fernández 2010, p. 210).
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We would like to thank Devin Martini for assistance with editing and translating parts of this chapter from German into English.
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Zaumseil, M., von Vacano, M., Schwarz, S., Sullivan, G., Prawitasari-Hadiyono, J. (2014). A Cultural Psychological Framework for Coping with Disasters. In: Zaumseil, M., Schwarz, S., von Vacano, M., Sullivan, G., Prawitasari-Hadiyono, J. (eds) Cultural Psychology of Coping with Disasters. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9354-9_3
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