Joint Action: Lack of Control, Uncertainty, and Passion in Social and Discursive Activity

Main Article Content

Angel Magos-Pérez
Gerardo Ortiz-Moncada

Abstract

When we speak, particularly when we speak with others, singular possibilities emerge before us to be and, at the same time, to construct social realities that, without those discursive practices, could never exist. The purpose of this work is to outline some of the principles of the notion of joint action proposed by John Shotter to elucidate how our ways of being ―speaking, thinking, feeling, etc.― and our actions are not the result of “our inner lives”, but rather occur in response to the actions of others and the situations we create with them during our everyday discursive practices. Our emphasis lies on three central characteristics of joint action: the underlying lack of control, the zone of uncertainty in which it takes place, and finally, the passion it entails. After all, we argue that the notion of joint action is an invaluable and powerful theoretical-methodological resource for studying social and conversational situations, leading to deep understandings of people's lives and the personal and social consequences that their everyday discursive practices bring with them.

Article Details

How to Cite
Magos-Pérez, A., & Ortiz-Moncada, G. (2025). Joint Action: Lack of Control, Uncertainty, and Passion in Social and Discursive Activity. Revista Stultifera, 8(2), 25–42. https://doi.org/10.4206/rev.stultifera.2025.v8n2-02
Section
Artículos de Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales
Author Biographies

Angel Magos-Pérez, Universidad Pedagógica Nacional, Ajusco, México.

Angel Magos Pérez es Doctor en Psicología Social por la Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Iztapalapa (UAM-I). Se desempeña como académico de la Universidad Pedagógica Nacional, Ajusco, México.

Gerardo Ortiz-Moncada, Universidad Pedagógica Nacional, Ajusco, México.

Gerardo Ortiz Moncada es Doctor en Pedagogía por la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). Se desempeña como académico de la Universidad Pedagógica Nacional, Ajusco, México.

References

Bajtín, M. (2003). Problemas de la poética de Dostoievski. FCE.

Billig, M. (1987). Arguing and Thinking. A Rhetorical Approach to Social Psychology. Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Bubnova, T. (2015). Prólogo. En M. Bajtín, Yo también soy. Fragmentos sobre el otro (pp. 7-20). Godot.

Burke, P. (1996). Hablar y callar. Funciones sociales del lenguaje a través de la historia. Gedisa.

Cabruja, T. (1996). Posmodernidad y subjetividad: Construcciones discursivas y relaciones de poder. En A. J. Gordo y J. L. Linaza (Coords.), Psicologías, Discursos y Poder (PDP) (pp. 373-390). Visor.

Fernández, P. (2004). Públicos y masas como sujetos de la psicología colectiva y protagonistas de la sociedad contemporánea. En G. Martínez y J. Mendoza (Coord.), Cuestiones básicas en psicología social (pp. 69-96). Universidad Autónoma de Tlaxcala.

Gergen, K. (1996). Realidades y relaciones: aproximaciones a la construcción social. Paidós.

Iñiguez, L. (2001). Identidad: de lo personal a lo social. Un recorrido conceptual. En E. Crespo y C. Soldevilla (Coord.), La constitución social de la subjetividad (pp. 209-226). Catarata.

MacItyre, A. (1988). Whose Justice? Which Rationality?. University of Notre Dame Press.

Mead, G.H. (1990). Espíritu, persona y sociedad. Desde el punto de vista del conductismo social. Paidós.

Shotter, J. (1987). The social construction of an “us”: problems of accountability and narratology. En R. Burnett, P. McGhee y D. Clarke (Eds.) Accounting for Personal Relationships: Social Representations of Interpersonal Links (pp. 225-247). Methuen.

Shotter, J. (1993a). Cultural politics of everyday life: social constructionism, rhetoric and knowing of the third kind. Toronto.

Shotter, J. (1993b). Realidades conversacionales. La construcción de la vida a través del lenguaje. Amorrortu.

Shotter, J. (1994). El lenguaje y la construcción del sí mismo. En M. Pakman (Coord.), Construcciones de la experiencia humana (pp. 213-226). Gedisa.

Shotter, J. (1995). In Conversation: Joint Action, Shared Intentionality and Ethics. SAGE Theory & Psychology. 5(1), 49-73. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354395051003

Shotter, J. (2009). Momentos de Referencia Común en la Comunicación Dialógica: Una base para la Colaboración Inconfundible en Contextos Únicos. International Journal of Collaborative Practices, 1(1), 29-38. https://ijcp.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/shotter-spanish.pdf

Shotter, J. (2014). Rhetoric and argumentation. In Ch. Antaki and S. Condor (Eds.), Rhetoric, Ideology and Social Psychology: Essays in honour of Michael Billig (pp. 43-56). Routledge.

Shotter, J. (2015). On “Relational Things”: A New Realm of Inquiry Pre- Understanding and Performative Understandings of People’s Meanings. En R. Garud, B. Simpson, A. Langley y H. Tsoukas (Eds.), The Emergence of Novelty in Organizations (pp. 56-79). Oxford University Press.

Shotter, J. (2016). Speaking, Actually: Towards a New ‘Fluid’ Common-Sense Understanding of Relational Becomings. Everything Connected.

Stokoe, E. (2018). Talk: The Science of Conversation. Robinson.