ABSTRACT
C ulture, conceptualized as a repository of meaningful symbols, provides a variety of conceptions that people use as symbolic resources to construct their own self-conceptions. To the extent that self is not completely definable ostensively (that is, by pointing), individual and collective efforts to make sense of selfhood must rely on symbols, which are necessarily supplied by culture (e.g., M. B. Smith, 1991). In turn, the lived experience of each self and its meaningful expressions contribute to the symbolic repertoire of the collective that is culture. That culture and self are mutually constitutive is a truism by now (e.g., Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Triandis, 1989). A pressing question is just how this mutual constitution should be understood. The relationship between culture and self not only is temporally dynamic, but also contextually varied (see review below). What is required is a theoretical framework that affords productive insights into the cultural dynamics of self-conceptions; that is, how culture and self shape each other in time and space. We attempt to make a first step toward developing such a theory in this chapter.
