Identity Development in the Lifecourse

This book offers a unique developmental perspective on identity construction in the context of mobility and transition to adulthood. Drawing upon semiotic cultural psychology, it embeds identity construction into the processes of meaning making; viewing identity as a field of hyper-generalised signs that are constantly reconstructed through encounters with social others in cultural worlds, and which allow individuals to make sense of themselves in relation to their lived pasts, experienced presents and imagined futures. 
Märtsin invites the reader to travel with eight young adults as they embark on their developmental journeys and seek to make sense of issues that matter most to them: home, adventure and belonging, friendships, recognition, and future-planning. The book is an invaluable resource for students and researchers interested in understanding the experiences of emerging adults in contemporary globalized world, but also for those interested inidentity processes from a semiotic, cultural and developmental perspective.

Mariann Märtsin is Senior Lecturer at Queensland University of Technology, Australia and Research Fellow at Tallinn University, Estonia. She has written widely about identity processes and meaning making as these relate to experiences of education, mobility, and major life-course transitions in adulthood. Her recent publications include Culture in Education, Education in Culture: Tensioned Dialogues and Creative Constructions (co-edited with Pernille Hviid, 2019).