The Social Logic of Invasion

Abstract

In this article, I theorize invasion as a sociocognitive phenomenon grounded in conceptual relations between the social statuses of “in” and “out.” Pulling invasion out of its ordinary and historically physical context, I explore how people share similar ways of envisioning invasions across a wide variety of domains in social life. To demonstrate this, I employ the qualitative concept‐driven comparative method of trans‐level analysis, tracing common mental models of invasion in the cases of the body, the home, and the nation‐state. Drawing from a sample of 42 in‐depth interviews as well as discourse and policy materials, I find that people envision invasion to take four basic forms: entry and existence, contamination, theft, and domination. Offering the concept of invasion subversion, I explore the highly contestable nature of invasions and the semiotic strategies of marking and unmarking that people leverage to challenge and reinforce arrangements between “in” and “out.” Ultimately, I show that invasions foreground social order and make visible the tacit rules of inclusion and exclusion that shape it. This study advances and extends the study of inclusion and exclusion to cognitive sociological terrain.