Co-constructing the adolescent’s identity: agency and autonomy as interactional accomplishments

Drawing on recent linguistic anthropological reflections on identity and discursive psychologists’ theorizing on social positioning, the authors of this chapter examine the dynamic and multifaceted enactment and transformation of identity in social interaction. The work presentd in this chapter suggests that agency and autonomy, key dimensions of adolescent identity development, do not emerge solely from the individual but are co-constructed and transformed in interpersonal exchanges. These theoretical propositions are supported through the discourse analysis of two family cases, which reveals that the discursive co-construction of adolescent agency and autonomy is non-linear and continuously negotiated. Families oscillate between different interactional configurations, with individual family members claiming, declining, reclaiming certain roles and competencies vis-à-vis other members of the family. In addition to illustrating the value of bridging different disciplinary perspectives together in the work presented in this chapter, the authors demonstrate the analytic purchase that a micro-examination of social interaction offers to adolescence and developmental psychology research

Complement activation in the injured central nervous system: Another dual-edged sword?

The complement system, a major component of the innate immune system, is becoming increasingly recognised as a key participant in physiology and disease. The awareness that immunological mediators support various aspects of both normal central nervous system (CNS) function and pathology has led to a renaissance of complement research in neuroscience. Various studies have revealed particularly novel findings on the wide-ranging involvement of complement in neural development, synapse elimination and maturation of neural networks, as well as the progression of pathology in a range of chronic neurodegenerative disorders, and more recently, neurotraumatic events, where rapid disruption of neuronal homeostasis potently triggers complement activation. The purpose of this review is to summarise recent findings on complement activation and acquired brain or spinal cord injury, i.e. ischaemic-reperfusion injury or stroke, traumatic brain injury (TBI) and spinal cord injury (SCI), highlighting the potential for complement-targeted therapeutics to alleviate the devastating consequences of these neurological conditions