Arquivos Brasileiros de Psicologia
On-line version ISSN 1809-5267
Abstract
VIEIRA JUNIOR, Ederglenn Nobre and RASERA, Emerson Fernando. Towards a performative social science in the work of Kenneth Gergen. Arq. bras. psicol. [online]. 2021, vol.73, n.3, pp.39-53. ISSN 1809-5267. https://doi.org/10.36482/1809-5267.arbp2021v73i3p.39-53.
Kenneth Gergen is an American psychologist who has occupied a prominent place among those who, doubting from the bases that historically supported Psychology as a science, started to look for alternatives. Despite of his importance in this scenario, there is a dearth of literature studies on Gergen's theoretical proposals and the development of his thinking. In this article, we analyze the main characteristics of the construction of a notion of science that has been described as performative in Gergen's most recent publications. We conducted a conceptual theoretical study, guided by the social constructionist epistemology and that was organized methodologically from the notion of internal criticism. We identify that the development of the notion of a science as a performance in Gergen's work accompanies important transformations in the understanding of scientific doing itself, such as the erosion of objectivity and rationality notion and the increasing focus on relational processes.
Keywords : Social Constructionism; Performance Science; Kenneth Gergen.