Social Representations and Discursive Psychology: From Cognition to Action

Abstract

This article compares and contrasts the way a set of fundamental issues are treated in social representations theory and discursive psychology. These are: action, representation, communication, cognition, construction, epistemology and method. In each case we indicate arguments for the discursive psychological treatment. These arguments are then developed and illustrated through a discussion of Wagner, Duveen, Themel and Verma (1999) which highlights in particular the way the analysis fails to address the activitiesdone by people when they are producing representations, and the epistemological troublesthat arise from failing to address the role of the researcher’s own representations.