Imagining one's life: Imagination, transitions and developmental trajectories

Life is not a quite river; it is exposed to curves, torrents, unpredicted turns and sometimes freezes... Sociocultural psychology gives us tool to analyze the diversity of life trajectories, and especially, the dynamics of transitions that offer occasions for learning and development after ruptures. To understand how new learning, new identities, or new life directions might emerge, it is very interesting to examine imagination. Imagination is the dynamic by which people leave the constraint of the here-and-now, and explore the past, the future and possible alternatives. A deeply social and cultural process, it is therefore the dynamic by which each person can define, alone and with others, his or her unique trajectory. Hence, through a theoretical exploration and empirical examples takes from a wide range of situations, I hope to indicate possible ways to understand and support human development.

2015