Appropriation

Introduction

Appropriation (from Latin appropriare, “to make one’s own”) is a Marxist origin concept borrowed from Hegel by Marx, well developed by philosophers such as Henri Lefebvre psychologists such as Carl Graumann and environmental and urban psychologists, such as Perla Korosec-Serfaty and Enric Pol, between many others such as Vygotsky. Indeed, Vygotsky’s work was influenced by Marx and it is probably one of the most useful directions to apply some Marxist ideas to psychology.

For Vygotsky (1978), the emergence of higher mental functions (verbal thought, focussed attention, deliberate memory, and so on) – unique to humans, culturally mediated, and passed on by teaching – is characterized by internalization. It can be defined as “the conversion of social relations into mental functions” (Vygotsky, 1981, p. 165). Individual development cannot be understood without reference to the social and cultural context within which it is embedded. Indeed, higher mental processes in the...