ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines the relationships between tricksters and systems, change and stability, in a wide range of social, political and cultural contexts. It explores the importance of shame and other trickster-controlling and personality-framing devices both on the individual and societal levels. The book also examines post-modernity is the age of the trickster as it is characterised by psychological fragmentation and the diminished roles of systems and frameworks. It describes the capitalism that is based on trickster psychology, and explores the trickster as a metaphor to trace the emergence and development of human identity as well as to examine the role of individuality in society.
