Symbolic Interaction and Applied Social Research: A Focus on Translational Science

In symbolic interaction, a traditional yet unfortunate and unnecessary distinction has been made between basic and applied research. The argument has been made that basic research is intended to generate new knowledge, whereas applied research is intended to apply knowledge to the solution of practical (social and organizational) problems. I will argue that the distinction between basic and applied research in symbolic interaction is outdated and dysfunctional. The masters of symbolic interactionist thought have left us a proud legacy of shaping their scholarly thinking and inquiry in response to and in light of practical issues of the day (e.g., Park and Blumer). Current interactionist work continues this tradition in topical areas such as social justice studies. Applied research, especially in term of evaluation and needs assessment studies, can be designed to serve both basic and applied goals. Symbolic interaction provides three great resources to do this. The first is its orientation to dynamic sensitizing concepts that direct research and ask questions instead of supplying a priori and often impractical answers. The second is its orientation to qualitative methods, and appreciation for the logic of grounded theory. The third is interactionism's overall holistic approach to interfacing with the everyday life world. The primary illustrative case here is the qualitative component of the evaluation of an National Institutes of Health‐funded, translational medical research program. The qualitative component has provided interactionist‐inspired insights into translational research, such as examining cultural change in medical research in terms of changes in the form and content of formal and informal discourse among scientists; delineating the impact of significant symbols such as “my lab” on the social organization of science; and appreciating the essence of the self‐concept “scientist” on the increasingly bureaucratic and administrative identities of medical researchers. This component has also contributed to the basic social scientific literature on complex organizations and the self.     

The Interactional Construction of Social Authenticity: “Real” Identities and Intergroup Relations in a Transylvania Internet Forum

Authenticity has become an increasingly salient topic within various interactional traditions, including conversational and discourse analysis, discursive psychology, interactional sociolinguistics, pragmatics, and symbolic interactionism. However, there has been remarkably little cross‐fertilization of ideas and concepts. In this study, we consider the relevance of the interactional sociolinguistic concept of relationality for symbolic interactionist theories of authenticity. We first disambiguate two forms of authenticity that are commonly studied but not clearly differentiated in symbolic interactionist research—self‐authenticity, which emphasizes selves, and social authenticity, which emphasizes social identities. We then argue that relationality and its three pairs of interactional tactics—verification and denaturalization, adequation and distinction, and authorization and illegitimation—are particularly useful in conceptualizing social authenticity. We draw on data from an interethnic internet forum to show how members of two ethnic groups, Hungarian and Romanian, employ these relational tactics to authenticate their own ethnicity as the rightful inheritors of a place‐based Transylvanian identity, and to limit the other ethnicity's similar identity work. We then clarify the significance of social authenticity for the interactional study of category‐based identities by widening our discussion to other contestations over social identities in everyday life.     

Extending the Symbolic Interactionist Theory of Interaction Processes: A Conceptual Outline

This article outlines the elements of a more robust symbolic interactionist theory of interpersonal processes. I argue that George Herbert Mead's conceptualization of interaction processes can be extended to explain not only micro‐level social processes but also key elements of meso‐ and macro‐level dynamics. By expanding Mead's and more recent symbolic interactionist theorizing, and incorporating key ideas from other theoretical traditions outside symbolic interactionism proper, it becomes possible to develop a theory of interaction that fills in important conceptual gaps in theories on the dynamics of micro‐, meso‐, and macro‐level social phenomena.     

Inequality and the Self: Exploring Connections from an Interactionist Perspective

Symbolic interactionism provides a major contribution to understanding inequality by illuminating the various manifestations and contexts of inequality at the micro, everyday level of social life. Drawing on a spectrum of symbolic interactionist theory and research, we examine the range of symbolic and interactional manifestations of social inequality, the consequences of being the object of patterned interactional affronts, and the strategies people use to negotiate interactional stigmatization in everyday life. We argue that symbolic interaction's unique contribution to understanding inequality results from two of the perspective's central features. First, symbolic interactionism emphasizes the necessity of investigating social life in situated social interaction. Second, it highlights social actors' capacities to interpret and construct lines of action rather than respond directly to the stimuli they encounter. Symbolic interactionist research and theory thus contribute to a more complex understanding of social stratification than that provided by perspectives focused exclusively on macroscopic structural factors.     

The Dynamics of Narcotic Abstinence: an Interactionist Theory*

Despite its theoretical and pragmatic importance, the etiology of abstinence among committed addicts has received surprisingly little attention. Based on in-depth interviews with samples of both institutionalized and noninstitutionalized addicts, this study presents a new theory of narcotic abstinence which, like much of the best work in this area, draws heavily from interactionist social psychology. Examination of the available evidence shows that, contrary to much theoretical speculation, the addict's nondeviant primary relations are not of major importance in the inception of a desire for abstinence. Rather, successful attempts at abstinence typically follow an intense “existential crisis” which forces the addict to reevaluate substantial parts of the symbolic motivational structures which create and sustain addiction. The reasons for the onset of this personal crisis, and the range of the addict's typical responses, are examined as part of an overall theory of abstinence.     

ON SEMIOTICS AND SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM

The place of semiotics within symbolic interactionist thought is discussed. The works of Barthes and Baudrillard are examined in terms of their implications for (1) an interactionist theory of the cultural object and (2) an interpretation of consumer relations in the postmodern period. The narrative texts of advertisements for Jack Daniel's Whiskey ** 1 Grateful acknowledgment and appreciation is given to the Jack Daniel Distillery for permission to use their advertising text as it appears on their product.
and Dewar's White Label Scotch *** 2 Grateful acknowledgment and appreciation is given to Dewar's for permission to use their advertising profile of Gary Jobson.
are analyzed in terms of the political economy of the sign suggested by Baudrillard and Barthes. The implications of this analysis for the symbolic interactionist theory of the object and language are discussed. The subject matter that now confronts us supersedes symbolic interaction; rather it is the process surrounding the autonomization of signs; signs that stand for—and refer to—nothing but themselves.     

Understanding Everyday Life: Generic Social Processes and the Pursuit of Transcontextuality

This paper joins earlier interactionist projects in advocating for an analytical attentiveness to generic social process (GSP). This dynamic form of theorizing is indebted to the thought of Herbert Blumer and the extended phenomenological and pragmatist traditions. Rather centrally, the study of GSPs draws upon the foundational concepts of duration, intersubjectivity, and the self. Such concepts have contributed to some of symbolic interactionism's most enduring, empirically grounded and theoretically robust work. Drawing on a series of ethnographic research projects, this paper offers a research agenda for engaging GSPs transcontextually. Specifically, I argue for extending the study of GSPs through the examination of management in everyday life, the creation of subcultural value, and the social construction of doubt.     

Learning from Experience: Recollections of Working with Howard S. Becker

Howard S. Becker is, and has been, a major figure in contemporary sociology, especially within the symbolic interactionist perspective. This discussion describes my initial encounter with Howie in the mid‐1960s and moves to identify the substantive and methodological areas in which he has had major impact. I then briefly outline various ways in which the foci of my own work have been shaped by Becker's instruction and example.     

THEORY AND METHOD IN STATUS ATTAINMENT RESEARCH*

This paper analyzes a contradiction between theory and method in status attainment research. The authors argue that the Meadian social psychology adopted by the status attainment researchers is incompatible with causal modeling which they use as their principal analytic tool, because Mead's ideas are inconsistent with any method which assumes unidirectional causality. A symbolic interactionist interpretation of the process of status attainment is offered in place of the causal interpretation. The symbolic interactionist interpretation removes the contradiction between theory and method and is, in addition, shown to be compatible with current sociological knowledge of the process of education. Finally, it is argued that the symbolic interactionist interpretation is also compatible with American political language, while the causal interpretation is not, and that therefore the adoption of the symbolic interactionist interpretation would permit the findings of status attainment research to speak to the question of the degree of equality of opportunity in American society as that question is asked in American politics.     

Ultimate concerns in late modernity: Archer,Bourdieu and reflexivity

Through a critique of Margaret Archer's theory of reflexivity, this paper explores the theoretical contribution of a Bourdieusian sociology of the subject for understanding social change. Archer's theory of reflexivity holds that conscious ‘internal conversations’ are the motor of society, central both to human subjectivity and to the ‘reflexive imperative’ of late modernity. This is established through critiques of Bourdieu, who is held to erase creativity and meaningful personal investments from subjectivity, and late modernity is depicted as a time when a ‘situational logic of opportunity’ renders embodied dispositions and the reproduction of symbolic advantages obsolete. Maintaining Archer's focus on ‘ultimate concerns’ in a context of social change, this paper argues that her theory of reflexivity is established through a narrow misreading and rejection of Bourdieu's work, which ultimately creates problems for her own approach. Archer's rejection of any pre‐reflexive dimensions to subjectivity and social action leaves her unable to sociologically explain the genesis of ‘ultimate concerns’, and creates an empirically dubious narrative of the consequences of social change. Through a focus on Archer's concept of ‘fractured reflexivity’, the paper explores the theoretical necessity of habitus and illusio for understanding the social changes that Archer is grappling with. In late modernity, reflexivity is valorized just as the conditions for its successful operation are increasingly foreclosed, creating ‘fractured reflexivity’ emblematic of the complex contemporary interaction between habitus, illusio, and accelerating social change.     

Social capital, networks and leisure consumption

This article reflects on the way in which personal ties affect the nature and content of consumption. While it is banal to observe that friends, kin, colleagues and neighbours influence anyone's pattern of consumption, comparatively little work exists on how this process operates. The article will be illustrated by some secondary analysis of the British Household Panel Survey which has a panel of approximately 10,000 people who have been interviewed annually since 1991. It analyses aspects of individual consumption in relation to people's associational involvement and friendship ties. The data is explored in the context of debates about social capital, attempting to apply the concept in order to analyse recreational practices. It is suggested that social capital is a flawed concept and that greater appreciation of the complexity and diversity of network ties is required to understand how personal connections influence consumption.     

Diana Gittins. The Child in Question. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997. 231 Pages

Abstract

Does occupation-level information reflect what people actually do at work and thus influence individuals? I examine whether there is an effect of occupation-level complexity on individuals' sense of personal control, and if there is, whether the effect is a proxy for the actual work people do on their jobs. I analyze a national probability sample of 1,450 employed persons interviewed by telephone in 1995. Without adjustment for worker's reports of autonomy, creativity, authority, and social interaction in their daily work, an index of DOT occupational complexity of work with data and people correlates with the sense of personal control. Adjustment for job-level autonomy, creativity, authority, and social interaction renders the occupation-level measure insignificant and shows significant effects of autonomous work, creative work, and social interaction at work on the sense of personal control.     

“Whose Side Are We On?” Revisited: Narrative Power,Narrative Inequality,and a Politics of Narrative Humanity

In 1967, Howard S. Becker gave a widely discussed and polemical presidential address entitled “Whose Side Are We On?” Here he introduced the idea of the hierarchy of credibility. Briefly reviewing the article, I suggest a little of how the world has moved on since then. The core of my analysis links symbolic interactionism to ideas of narrative power, narrative inequality, and narrative othering, sketching out a frame of generic forms of narrative power: domination, exclusion, negotiation, and resistance. I stress the dynamics of the subordinated standpoint and narrative othering. Drawing from a wide range of empirical examples where these processes are featured, I suggest many of us tacitly work with such ideas in our studies. I end by returning to Becker's question—Whose side are we on?—and answer: the side of humanity. Just what we mean by humanity raises contentious value claims, especially in these posthuman times. But understanding our humanities and the value challenge they pose provides the necessary prerequisite for answering Becker's question. From this, political action can flow, and a politics of humanity can be cultivated.     

Queers,Bodies and Postmodern Sexualities: A Note on Revisiting the “Sexual” in Symbolic Interactionism

This article reflects on the linkage between developments in symbolic interactionist theory over the past thirty years and the sociological study of the social construction of sexualities. After some personal reflections on the development of the theory, four main themes are highlighted: the links to postmodernism and queer theory; the paths to new research styles; some internal problems with the theory; and the need to reinstall the importance of the body. The article concludes that symbolic interactionism remains a major approach to the study of sexuality.     

Mind,Self, and Human-Animal Joint Action

Abstract

Because Herbert Blumer maintained that symbolic interactionism was useful in examining all realms of social behavior, and advocated what Martin Hammersley refers to as “critical commonsensism,” this paper focuses on one of the most common contemporary social relationships—that between people and companion animals. I first examine the basis for Blumer's (like Mead before him and many interactionist scholars today) exclusion of nonhuman animals from consideration as “authentic” social actors. Primarily employing the recent work of interactionists Eugene Myers, Leslie Irvine, Janet and Steven Alger, and Clinton Sanders, this paper advocates the reasonableness of regarding nonhuman animals as “minded,” in that mind, as Gubrium emphasizes, is a social construction that arises out of interaction. Similarly, I maintain that animals possess an admittedly rudimentary “self.” Here I focus special attention on Irvine's discussion of those “self experiences” that are independent of language and arise out of interaction. Finally, I discuss “joint action” as a key element of people's relationships with companion animals as both the animal and human attempt to assume the perspective of the other, devise related plans of action and definitions of object, and fit together their particular (ideally, shared) goals and collective actions. I stress the ways in which analytic attention to human-animal relationships may expand and enrich the understanding of issues of central sociological interest.     

SUBSTANCE AND STYLE: AN APPRAISAL OF THE SOCIOLOGICAL LEGACY OF HERBERT BLUMER

The substance and the style of Herbert Blumer's legacy to sociology are examined. Examining the former proceeds by specifying essentials and nonessentials of a symbolic interactionist framework, and by distinguishing between Blumer's ideas that do and do not contribute toward the objective of general explanatory theory premised on the framework together with rigorous tests of such theory using a full arsenal of research methods and techniques. Examining the latter proceeds by suggesting that Blumer's style of combative and oppositional argumentation, while not without its utility, has contributed to a present-day scholasticism within symbolic interactionism that inhibits the development of the framework.     

Identity and the Definition of the Situation in a Mass‐Mediated Context

The importance of identity and the definition of the situation for symbolic interactionist theory and research are discussed. These two concepts have been separated in much research since the 1970s, with identity being used in a variety of ways. This separation is partly attributed to paradigm shifts in social science, as well as to popular culture treatments of identity. Popular culture's emphasis on “collective” and “personal” identities is processed through entertainment formats that emphasize emotional and vicarious involvement, drama and action. Materials illustrate the presence of a mass‐mediated generalized other, media communities, and the significance this has for realist and postrealist ethnography. Suggestions are offered for a reintegration of identity and the definition of the situation in ethnographic work. Sex videos are total fantasy. But people have to realize that even in a fantasy you have to deal with reality. —Pornographic film actress     

Postmodern Swing Dance and Secondary Adjustment: Identity as Process

In this article, the author describes activities of strategic consumption that members of a postmodern swing dance scene utilized to construct identity. He deploys Goffman's category of “contained secondary adjustment” for describing social interactions that are moments of purposeful resistance designed to usurp (while also being lodged within) organizational and/or institutional claims and constraints for identity and self. Specifically, the article describes swing dancers' presentations of unique selves, thrift store shopping, tavern socializing, and swing dancing. Swing dancers utilized these secondary adjustments to resist the dictates of corporate‐driven and mass‐mediated claims and constraints for “mainstream” consumer identities. These secondary adjustments add up to an “identity distancing,” which is the individual's and/or group's purposeful distancing and separation from other identities or groups associated with popular culture. Describing the swing dancers' secondary adjustments reaffirms the symbolic interactionist stance that identity construction is a durable social interactional process.     

Paulo Freire: Neglected Mentor for Social Work

Paulo Freire, Brazilian educator and author, advocated radical educational approaches to empower oppressed peoples. Social workers contributing to English-language journals and other literature have made only limited use of Freire's ideas. Explanations may include social work's clinical drift, discomfort with radical ideas, obliviousness to contributions from the developing world, unease with religious thought, and avoidance of primary sources, in addition to the complexity of Freire's writing style. This article introduces Freire's contributions and suggests consistent approaches in social work practice, past and present, illustrating that those who practice with marginalized and disempowered people can benefit from reading Freire as a mentor.