Radical Interactionism: Going Beyond Mead*

George Herbert Mead argues that human society is comprised of six basic institutions—language, family, economics, religion, polity, and science. I do not believe that he can be criticized for making institutions the cornerstones of a society, but he can definitely be criticized for his explanation of how our basic institutions originate, how these institutions operate in society after their inception, and how they later change, modifying society in the process. The problem with Mead's explanation of these three critical matters is that he based them on his principle of “sociality” rather than on the principle of “domination.” If Mead's principle of sociality is replaced by the principle of domination and his notion of the “generalized other” is replaced by the notion of the “phantom community,” then most of these problems can be largely solved. Thus, in this paper, I will not only point out the key problems in Mead's theory of society, but I will also offer solutions to them based on the notions of domination and the “phantom community.” The end product is a “radical interactionism” that surpasses Mead's original interactionism in identifying the part that both domination and the composite “other” play in every known human society—big and small, and past and present.     

G.H. Mead's Understanding of the Nature of Speech in the Light of Contemporary Research

The following analysis demonstrates that G.H. Mead's understanding of human speech (what Mead often referred to as “the vocal gesture”) is remarkably consistent with today's interdisciplinary field that studies speech as a natural behavior with an evolutionary history. Mead seems to have captured major empirical and theoretical insights more than half a century before the contemporary field began to take shape. In that field the framework known as “Tinbergen's Four Questions,” developed in ecology to study naturally occurring behavior in nonhuman animals, has been an effective organizing framework for research on human speech. It is used in this paper to organize the comparison of Mead with contemporary scholars. The analysis concludes that Mead was, in a sense, “beyond” the Four Questions by recognizing the limitations of reductionist methods in understanding the nature of conscious phenomena, especially language. Mead's socially situated model of the nature of human speech makes him relevant to today's field where some see an undervaluation of the treatment of language as a social process.     

Adding the “Symbolic” to Interactionist Practice: A Theoretical Elaboration of William Schwartz' Legacy to Group Workers

Symbolic interactionism is one of the premier theoretical perspectives on group life, but group work theorists have neglected it. This article provides metatheoretical reflections on the legacy of William Schwartz and the stalled project of theorizing about the communicative foundation of groups. Exemplars in the interactionist tradition are profiled, and their conceptual and practical contributions to a “symbolic” interactionist group theory are highlighted. The structure of interactionist theory is mapped, and a set of distinctive concepts and assumptions organized around the construct of symbolic practices is presented. The article concludes with a call to group workers to harvest the fruits of the interactionist theoretical and research program.     

Siting Praxeology. The Methodological Significance of “Public” in Theories of Social Practices

The concept of “site” is at the center of current debates in theories of social practices as well as in cultural anthropology. It is unclear, however, how to assess the associated methodological assumption that overriding social structures or cultural formations can manifest themselves in sites. The article draws on the conception of social practices and introduces the notion of “publicness” in order to explicate how and why sociality and social structures can be accessed through “siting”. Sites as well as social practices, it is claimed, have to be conceptualized as essentially public and thus principally observable phenomena. This assumption of publicness implicit to both site ontology and theories of social practices is unfolded on the basis of a praxeological reformulation of the paradigm of joint attention elaborated in developmental psychology. To avoid presentist misinterpretations, we then conceptualize sociality as chains of practices across time and space, drawing on the works of Theodore Schatzki, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Anthony Giddens and Bruno Latour. The public carriers of practices (artifacts, symbols, media, bodies) and the translocal structures they establish acquire particular significance in these approaches. In a further step, we present some methodological consequences of the “publicness assumption” and support our arguments by referring to Pierre Bourdieu's study on Distinction.     

The Social as Heaven and Hell: Pierre Bourdieu's Philosophical Anthropology

Many authors have argued that all studies of socially specific modalities of human action and experience depend on some form of “philosophical anthropology”, i.e. on a set of general assumptions about what human beings are like, assumptions without which the very diagnoses of the cultural and historical variability of concrete agents' practices would become impossible. Bourdieu was sensitive to that argument and, especially in the later phase of his career, attempted to make explicit how his historical‐sociological investigations presupposed and, at the same time, contributed to the elaboration of an “idea of the human being”. The article reconstructs Bourdieu's philosophical anthropology, starting with his genetic sociology of symbolic power, conceived as a form of critical theory (latu sensu), and concluding with an account of the conditio humana in which recognition (“symbolic capital”) appears as both the fundamental existential goal through which human agents strive to confer meaning on their lives and the source of the endless symbolic competition that keeps society moving. The agonistic vision of the social universe that grounds his sociological studies returns in his philosophical anthropology under the guise of a singular synthesis between Durkheim's thesis that “Society is God” and Sartre's idea that “hell is other people”.     

Healthcare decommodification in decentralization context: Reviewing the ideational constructions of “classless hospital policy” initiatives in Kulon Progo Regency,Indonesia

This article illustrates the emergence of radical local welfare initiatives as a political response to the imperfect national program in decentralization context in Indonesia. In order to gain further understanding of the topic, it is worth reviewing Kulon Progo Regency's experience which recently embarked on removing class stratification at any in‐patient room in all local government‐owned hospitals through “classless hospital policy” initiatives. Using exploratory case study method, this article aims to review the ideational constructions of healthcare decommodification that is displayed on this initiative. It is concluded that the classless hospital policy reflects how social citizenship was organized through the mechanism of idea contestation which originated in the past community's behavior, combined with the vested interest of political regime for then subduing market logics under state power. This circumstance ultimately has provided the groundwork for encouraging innovative welfare outcome.     

Supporting care‐experienced adults' educational journeys: “Linked lives” over the life course

Research highlights the role of key actors and relationships in supporting the educational attainment and progress of children in care and care leavers. We know less about how relationships influence the educational journeys of people with care experience over time and how to support the educational progress and engagement of adults with care experience. The principle of “linked lives” is central to the life course perspective referring to the interdependence of human lives throughout the life course. This paper explores how the principle of linked lives can illuminate our understanding of how relationships positively influence the educational journeys of adults with care experience over time. Educational life history interviews were conducted with 18 care‐experienced adults (aged 24–36) in Ireland. Findings suggest that the principle of linked lives is a valuable conceptual tool for providing new insights on this issue. Four key themes were identified: (a) opportunities for educational support are present across the life course; (b) “family” is a central source of educational support; (c) there is intergenerational capacity for educational support; and (d) relationships beyond the “family” are supportive of education. Implications for practice, policy, and research are explored.     

The “Exceptional”United States: First New Nation or Last Welfare State?

The author discusses the American welfare state in the context of Lash and Urry's thesis on ‘disorganized capitalism’. Attention is directed to the claim that the US welfare state has been the laggard of organized capitalism but is becoming the pathbreaker in defining patterns of public welfare provision under an increasingly disorganized capitalism. In this context the US may be “showing the way” to the welfare states of Western Europe. A number of claims about the “exceptional” nature of US development are reviewed and a number of reservations are entered against the “disorganization” thesis as applied to the welfare state. It is suggested that attention should be focussed upon contemporary patterns of welfare state re-organization rather than dis-organization.     

Experience,Subjectivity, Selfhood: Beyond a Meadian Sociology of the Self

Sociologists tend to see G. H. Mead's conceptualization of self as fundamentally correct. In this paper, we develop a critique of Mead's notion of the self as constituted through social interactions. Our focus will be on Mead's categorial distinction between the socially constructed self and subjective experience, as well as on the tendency of post-Meadian sociologists to push Mead's position in ever more radical directions. Drawing inspiration from a multifaceted understanding of selfhood that can be found in Husserlian phenomenology, we then propose that the most basic level of selfhood is anchored in irreducible subjective experience.     

Beyond Husserl and Schütz. Hermann Schmitz and Neophenomenological Sociology

Phenomenological sociology is one of the most recognized approaches for explaining the constitution of social behaviour and the construction of social reality. To this day, phenomenological sociology usually belongs to the tradition of Edmund Husserl's transcendental phenomenology and to Alfred Schütz's mundane phenomenology, thus generally presenting itself as sociology of lifeworld, sociology of everyday life, and sociology of knowledge. In contrast to this, this paper intends to outline an alternative kind of phenomenological sociology that finds its philosophical foundation in Hermann Schmitz's “New Phenomenology”. With regards especially to Schmitz's theory of the felt body (“Leib”) and his theory of situation, the basic principles of Neophenomenological Sociology (NPS) will be introduced. Their main components are (1) felt body and affective involvement as the pre-personal apriori of sociality, (2) felt-bodily communication as the basic unit of sociality, and (3) joint situations as the socio-ontological foundation and empirical manifestation of sociality. With these specific key concepts, NPS proves itself to be a socio-theoretical approach whose foremost strength is that it can identify and properly analyse the pathic dimensions of social behaviour and social situations that social sciences tend to overlook.     

Re‐conceptualizing Abstract Conceptualization in Social Theory: The Case of the “Structure” Concept

I this paper, I draw on recent research on the radically embodied and perceptual bases of conceptualization in linguistics and cognitive science to develop a new way of reading and evaluating abstract concepts in social theory. I call this approach Sociological Idea Analysis. I argue that, in contrast to the traditional view of abstract concepts, which conceives them as amodal “presuppositions” removed from experience, abstract concepts are irreducibly grounded in experience and partake of non‐negotiable perceptual‐symbolic features from which a non‐propositional “logic” naturally follows. This implies that uncovering the imagistic bases of allegedly abstract notions should be a key part of theoretical evaluation of concepts in social theory. I provide a case study of the general category of “structure” in the social and human sciences to demonstrate the analytic utility of the approach.     

Barack Obama's “American” Problem: Unhyphenated Americans in the 2008 Elections*

Objectives. The largest increase of any ancestry group between the 1990 and 2000 Census in the United States were “unhyphenated Americans,” those whites who claimed an “American” or no ancestry. This article measures this group's voting habits in the 2008 elections. Methods. With individual‐level attitudinal data and county‐level voting data from the 2008 primary and 2000–2008 general elections, the analyses use quantitative methods to estimate unhyphenated Americans' voting behavior. Results. Evidence indicates a strong rejection of Obama among counties with high proportions of unhyphenated Americans in both the 2008 primary and general elections. Conclusion. While spatially concentrated in and near Appalachia, unhyphenated Americans' politics are distinctive irrespective of socioeconomic status, religion, and geography, being one of the few groups in which Barack Obama lost votes compared to previous Democratic nominees. Variation in the share of unhyphenated Americans explains more of the difference between 2008 and past elections than variation in the share of African Americans per county.     

Social workers' reflexive understandings of their “everyday” communications with children

Over the past two decades, the use of ethnographic research methods, in combination with a range of discursive, conversational, and multimodal analytical approaches, have provided vivid accounts of the complex nature of social workers' everyday communication. This paper discusses the potential and the problems of combining a video‐stimulated recall methodology with an explicit theoretical framework, in order to generate critical reflexive “insider” accounts of social workers' direct encounters with children. The framework employed was based on an adaptation of Goffman's concepts of “framing” and “footing,” which were integrated into an analytical process designed to theorize social workers' critiques regarding the nature of their communication with children. Three detailed case exemplars are used to demonstrate the potential of this methodology to explore the “delicate” agency required by social workers in the practice of authentic communication in complex professional inquiries with children. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the theoretical and practical issues associated with utilizing reflexive methodologies in professional contexts.     

Social Representations and Repression: Examining the First Formulations of Freud and Moscovici

The English edition of Moscovici's classic work on the social representation of psychoanalysis enables us to reflect on the historical origins of psychoanalytic ideas and of social representation theory itself. Moscovici claimed that science was both univocal and abstract and, in these respects, it differs from the social representations of commonsense. This paper explores these notions, especially in relation to Moscovici's claim that psychoanalytic theory is to be found in Freud's first formulations. It is suggested that some of the processes, which Moscovici attributes to the passage of psychoanalytic ideas to commonsense, can be found occur in the early history of psychoanalysis. This can be seen in Freud's criticisms of the way Jung used the concept of “complex”. Moreover, psychoanalytic theory could never be univocal for it incorporated the voices of patients and their representations of the world. An examination of Studies on Hysteria reveals further multivocality as Freud uses both the “action” language of ordinary life and the reified, nominalized language of science. Examples are given in relation to the first formulations of the key psychoanalytic concept of “repression”. Some comparisons are made between Freud's first formulations of “repression” and Moscovici's first formulations of “social representation”.     

From “Either‐Or” to “When and How”: A Context‐Dependent Model of Culture in Action

In this article, I outline a framework for the sociological study of culture that connects three intertwined elements of human culture (cultural motivations, resources, and meanings) and demonstrates the concrete contexts under which each most critically influences actions and their subsequent outcomes. In contrast to models that cast motivations, resources, and meanings as competing explanations of how culture affects action, I argue that these are fundamental constituent elements of culture that are inseparable, interdependent, and simultaneously operative. Which element provides the strongest link to action, and how this link operates, must be understood as a function of the actor's position within wider social contexts. I argue that on average motivations have the most discernable link to action within a social strata, cultural resources provide the strongest link across strata, and meanings have the greatest direct influence when codified and sanctioned. I then offer a reframing and synthesis that reintegrates previously “competing” theories of culture into a more holistic context‐dependent model of culture in action. Finally, I use evidence from prior empirical research, as well as new data from an ongoing ethnographic study of health behaviors among the aged, to show how various elements of culture are concretely linked to action in eight different social contexts. In doing so, I provide a roadmap for the transition out of the “either‐or” logic underlying much of cultural theory and reemphasize the importance of the classical sociological concern for “when” and “how” various aspects of culture influence action and outcomes in concrete social contexts.     

“Explain or change”: The quality and uses of ethnicity data in universities and healthcare organisation in England

“Explain or change” was a key term that came into currency in the UK from 2016 onwards to put the onus on public institutions to account for disparities in outcomes on the basis of class, gender, and ethnicity in the main. One of the most prominent outcomes of this policy initiative was the government Race Disparity Audit. This article aims to go behind the headline figures to understand what it means to either “explain” or “change” figures and policies around race/ethnicity in particular. It outlines the findings of a survey and some interviews with staff working in the NHS in London and in universities in England. The findings point to difficulties with the quality of data generated by these organisations, as well as the uses of data. Practitioners feel that data is incomplete and do not provide the routes to policy measures that will make a clear difference to outcomes. At the same time, there is a feeling there is a lack of will to use data to either explain or change their organisation's response to race inequality. Thus, this article concludes that the use of ethnicity data remains the main concern for many participants in this study.     

From “what works” to “making it work”: A practice perspective on evidence-based standardization in frontline service organizations

Evidence-based standards are becoming increasingly influential in frontline services connected to labor market inclusion of vulnerable citizens. To increase our understanding of standardization in such public service delivery, this study draws on interviews and ethnographic fieldwork from two frontline offices in the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration (2017–2018) that use the evidence-based Individual Placement and Support (IPS) standard. Adopting a theoretical perspective of organizational practices, the study highlights two distinct approaches to practicing IPS in the frontline organizations: as a “practice shift” in one organization (i.e., creating and legitimizing radically new service practices involving closer collaboration with employers) and as a “practice revival” in the other (i.e., reinstating more traditional service practices involving a holistic client orientation). Each approach relates to a specific constellation of recruitment practices, dynamics between frontline supervisors and staff, and team integration. The study contributes to the literature in two ways. First, it shows the underlying flexibility embedded in standardization and how standards may be implemented and adapted in ways that may either promote more radical change or revive traditional practices. Second, it nuances positions in the literature on the impact of standards on professional service work. On this basis, the study suggests broadening the attention in research on evidence-based standards in public service delivery from discussions of “what works” to understanding the broader organizational dynamics involved in “making it work.”     

Part II: Death in Literature. Poetry as Epitaph

Anyone tolerably versed in American literature will realize that we could have devoted our entire collection to attitudes toward death in American literature. Such a collection could be tightly organized and valuable, but it might also be redundant for an audience which consists primarily of loosened-up literary folk to begin with. So we offer, instead of standard selections, a group of essays which, though they are about death in literature, use literature as a vehicle for discussing either theoretical or practical interpretations of death in American society and letters. Karen Campbell's essay, “Poetry as Epitaph,” uses Emily Dickinson's poetry to illustrate and embody current international theories about death and language. We place this contribution first in this section because it serves as a transition between Gravestones and Epitaphs and Death in Literature: Dickinson was writing at the same historical moment discussed by Kenneth Ames in “Ideologies in Stone,” a fact the reader may wish to remember while reading “Poetry as Epitaph;” and Karen Campbell treats Dickinson's poetry as epitaphic in style and genre. Sonia Gernes' “Life After Life: Katherine Anne Porter's Version” uses Porter's “Pale Horse, Pale Rider” to illustrate and make provocative suggestions about Raymond Moody's theses in Life After Life. Leslier Fiedler's contribution is an extract from a speech given under the auspices of an organization studying the humanist's response to child abuse, and is part of a series of lectures on that subject. He discusses infanticide through literature and then through popular culture. Marvin Kohl takes issue with some of Professor Fiedler's conclusions.     

Changing paradigms in measuring national well‐being: How does Korea rank “beyond GDP”?

Academics, politicians, and citizens around the world are calling for multidimensional measures of national well‐being to be included in public policy‐making. Under the motto “The Future of Well‐Being,” the 6th OECD World Forum recently pushed forward this debate in Incheon, Korea. Comparing multidimensional well‐being measures across countries, Korea ranks well in income and health, but shows deficiencies in social support, perceived freedom over life choices, air quality, and work‐life balance. Multidimensional measures of well‐being are increasingly being adopted by policy‐makers around the world to improve people's lives.     

The self as the locus of morality: A comparison between Charles Taylor and George Herbert Mead's theories of the moral constitution of the self

This paper provides a critical comparison of two leading exponents of the relationship between morality and selfhood: Charles Taylor and George Herbert Mead. Specifically, it seeks to provide an assessment of the contribution each approach is able to make to a social theory of morality that has the self at its heart. Ultimately, it is argued that Taylor's phenomenological account neglects the significance of interaction and social relations in his conceptualisation of the relationship between morality and self, which undermines the capacity of his framework to explain how moral understandings and dialogic moral subjectivity develop in a world of shared meaning. I then argue that Mead's pragmatist interactionist approach overcomes many of the flaws in Taylor's framework, and offers a grounded conceptualisation of the relationship between self and morality that is able to provide a basis for a properly social account of moral subjectivity.