ABSTRACT
Every single day since birth we have been forced to situate ourselves inside a vast number of different discursive environments and social situations that touch what we consider necessary to ‘live well’, that help us construct the meaning of ‘who we are’, and that introduce and reinforce the ‘common values’ we share and pursue. As we produce material life in order to survive (food, housing, clothing), we also find ways to exist in the middle of an intricate, dynamic, and constant flow of social discourses. Some of these discourses come from professional organizations whose very job is to define, regulate, and concentrate the meanings of common needs, identities, and values considered worth achieving and preserving. These tendencies are the centripetal forces in society.
