Constructing Meaning through Human Movement

Human living entails the perpetual exploration of both natural and built-up environments, including physical movement - all modes of sensory involvement, and psychological movement - the movement of the mind. This book takes human movement as a central concept to understanding the richness and complexity of living and explores how both forms of movement, the body and the psyche, intersect and interact. Chapters examine how the higher and lower psychological functions converge in a meaning-making process and provide a theoretical development of semiotic mediation and ambivalence. A series of case studies offer concrete examples of the application of the theory of meaning-making, and consider the relationship between continental traditions (e.g. hermeneutics and phenomenology) and semiotic cultural psychology.

Zachary Beckstead is Visiting Professor of Psychology at Grand Valley State University, USA.