Chapter 1 - Socio-political Sources of the Theory of Social Representations

Summary

1. The making of a social scientific theory, which is grounded in dramatic political events, brings to the surface the question of its meaning, purpose, and historical role. Scientific theories, as well as common-sense insights that develop during wars, revolutions, or pandemics, tend to focus the human mind on fundamental problems of human existence, survival, and the extension of life.

When Serge Moscovici arrived in Paris in early 1948 as a political refugee, he did not know how to achieve his goal to become a ‘man of study’. His experience of the Second World War, of crimes against humans, and of problems of post-War Europe guided his thought towards questions such as what binds individuals and society together, and what separates them? These were political as well as intellectual and socio-cultural questions.

Moscovici’s generation of migrant social psychologists struggled with concrete questions of understanding political and cultural problems in their adopted countries, of the racism that the War inflicted with its full force, and of reconstructing the world that was left in ruins. Moscovici thought that social psychology could find solutions to these issues because it was a discipline in movement.