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The ’world’ of Aboriginal individuals within which they
. 2
locate themselves and find their psychological reality is made
credible, real, within a framework of theorizing. Theorizing
enables this world to be presented as a coherent whole for
scrutiny by others and at the same time Objectivates the world
as a ’reality’ for actors themselves.
In order to study the psychological reality of identity,
the question of which reality it is under discussion is addressed,
which psychological model is being socially constructed and socially
maintained, and by which section
constructed and maintained.
of society this model is
For Aboriginal people the psychological model may be the
result either of mainstream theorizing or Aboriginal theorizing
that is at variance with mainstream theorizing.
Theorizing is of significance since theorizing about a world
of meaning once Objectivated becomes reified. It is perceived as a
'given*, a ’facticity’ standing over and against the individual,
and having power to act back on the individual and produce a
psychological reality within which he may find identity.
Mead’s self-fulfilling prophecy and Thomas* notion of how
definitions of reality become real are formulations of this phenomenon.
The acceptance of these formulations in everyday thinking is also an
ɪ’World’ is taken to mean **tħe comprehensive organizations of
reality within which individual experience can be meaningfully
interpreted” (Berger, 1971:96).
2
’Psychological reality* (Berger, 1971:95) refers to ’’the manner
in which the individual apprehends himself, his processes of
consciousness and his relation with others”.