Four approaches to concept formation are particularly fruitful for the endeavor of this book. These are Adrian Cussins’ theory of cognitive trails, Serge Moscovici’s and Ivana Marková’s closely interconnected theories of social representations and dialogicality, Ed Hutchins’ theory of conceptual blending by material anchors, and Nancy Nersessian’s theory of model-based reasoning. An examination of these approaches yields the following initial lessons: (1) longitudinal character of concept formation, (2) materiality of concept formation, (3) societal and dialogical embeddedness of concept formation, (4) centrality of tensions and contradictions in concept formation, and (5) importance of change and future-orientation in concept formation in the wild. These first lessons are still embryonic. They draw on cognitive and social-psychological approaches that are not systematically built on materialist dialectics.

This chapter explores the processes of identity construction by the self in articulation with socio-cultural processes in which people develop. With this as an objective, the authors propose a theoretical discussion based on the analysis of a case study of indigenous Mapuche women in southern Chile. They propose that these women build their identities as indigenous Mapuche weavers by reconciling processes of change imposed from the outside (by others) with the processes of constructing a sense of continuity associated with the Mapuche tradition. To this end, they analyze the identity constructs of these women in new religious and commercial settings where their tradition comes under strain. These analyses are proposed from the referential framework of cultural psychologies and semiotic-cultural constructivism, approaching the understanding that different identities emerge under the conditions of distinct perspectives, such as indigenous and nonindigenous perspectives, in research and other social relationships.