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.
{"title":"The Social Logic of Invasion","authors":"Stephanie Peña‐Alves","doi":"10.1002/symb.696","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.696","url":null,"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.","PeriodicalId":47804,"journal":{"name":"Symbolic Interaction","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140751987","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The elevation of one‐ness and the singular is a social pattern that can be identified across domains and contexts. I call this phenomenon mononormativity and define it as the normativity of “one‐ness” and “singularity” in contemporary U.S. society. Social pattern analysis is used to demonstrate how conventions of social marking can reveal previously unexplored patterns across seemingly unrelated institutions, identities, and relationships to show that mononormativity reflects the very basic ideals of how society is organized. This article takes what has been taken for granted and baked into the social mindscape and foregrounds what has previously been unexplored.
{"title":"Mononormativity: The Social Elevation of the Singular","authors":"Armani Beck","doi":"10.1002/symb.693","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.693","url":null,"abstract":"The elevation of one‐ness and the singular is a social pattern that can be identified across domains and contexts. I call this phenomenon mononormativity and define it as the normativity of “one‐ness” and “singularity” in contemporary U.S. society. Social pattern analysis is used to demonstrate how conventions of social marking can reveal previously unexplored patterns across seemingly unrelated institutions, identities, and relationships to show that mononormativity reflects the very basic ideals of how society is organized. This article takes what has been taken for granted and baked into the social mindscape and foregrounds what has previously been unexplored.","PeriodicalId":47804,"journal":{"name":"Symbolic Interaction","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-03-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140382006","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article examines the formal similarities between cases such as imprisonment, banishment from social media, school detention, and immigrant deportation. The two main formal properties underlying all these cases are isolation and punishment, hence the social pattern under investigation: punitive isolation. By engaging with formal and concept‐driven theoretical and methodological approaches, I outline three categories of punitive isolation based on their relation to physical and relational spaces: banishment, grounding, and excommunication. In doing so, I offer an analytical framework to understand the social phenomenon under investigation.
{"title":"Banishment, Grounding, and Excommunication: A Typology of Punitive Isolation","authors":"Juliana de Oliveira Horst","doi":"10.1002/symb.694","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.694","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the formal similarities between cases such as imprisonment, banishment from social media, school detention, and immigrant deportation. The two main formal properties underlying all these cases are isolation and punishment, hence the social pattern under investigation: punitive isolation. By engaging with formal and concept‐driven theoretical and methodological approaches, I outline three categories of punitive isolation based on their relation to physical and relational spaces: banishment, grounding, and excommunication. In doing so, I offer an analytical framework to understand the social phenomenon under investigation.","PeriodicalId":47804,"journal":{"name":"Symbolic Interaction","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-03-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140386238","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article examines how police officers generate momentum and create opportunities for gaining control in—what they perceive as—potentially violent interactions. Theoretically, the article aims to add to interactionist sociology by illuminating the mechanisms through which participants anticipate and create shared meanings of future possibilities for an encounter. I build upon insights into the function of social interaction for future configuration proposed by interactionist scholars since the 1960s. The empirical contribution is to challenge explanations of officers' attempts to gain control as mere cognitivist decision‐making, ignoring the embodied dimension of anticipating. Drawing on ninety‐four elicitation interviews with Dutch officers on violent events and field work observations of police‐civilian interactions, findings show that officers argue they sense opportunities through an awareness of civilian distraction. To create opportunities for actions that enable gaining control, they refocus civilians' attention. Officers do this by acting in ways a civilian does not readily anticipate through bodily spatial positioning and by using material objects, what I refer to as “positional play.” By detailing how officers act upon momentum, I illustrate that embodied sense‐making and attunement toward serendipitous circumstances is key for police action. The article enriches interactionist scholarship by showing the mise en scène of how the police realize control on an embodied level.
{"title":"Creating “Windows of Opportunity”: How Police Officers Sense and Generate Momentum for Gaining Control in Police‐Civilian Interactions","authors":"L. Keesman","doi":"10.1002/symb.686","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.686","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines how police officers generate momentum and create opportunities for gaining control in—what they perceive as—potentially violent interactions. Theoretically, the article aims to add to interactionist sociology by illuminating the mechanisms through which participants anticipate and create shared meanings of future possibilities for an encounter. I build upon insights into the function of social interaction for future configuration proposed by interactionist scholars since the 1960s. The empirical contribution is to challenge explanations of officers' attempts to gain control as mere cognitivist decision‐making, ignoring the embodied dimension of anticipating. Drawing on ninety‐four elicitation interviews with Dutch officers on violent events and field work observations of police‐civilian interactions, findings show that officers argue they sense opportunities through an awareness of civilian distraction. To create opportunities for actions that enable gaining control, they refocus civilians' attention. Officers do this by acting in ways a civilian does not readily anticipate through bodily spatial positioning and by using material objects, what I refer to as “positional play.” By detailing how officers act upon momentum, I illustrate that embodied sense‐making and attunement toward serendipitous circumstances is key for police action. The article enriches interactionist scholarship by showing the mise en scène of how the police realize control on an embodied level.","PeriodicalId":47804,"journal":{"name":"Symbolic Interaction","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140248977","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this article, we elaborate on both bread‐and‐butter and epistemological features of concept‐driven sociology (CDS). First, we highlight the specific link between this framework and Zerubavel's approach by outlining how CDS is especially suited to deepen the understanding of unmarked dimensions and intersubjective phenomena, reflexively re‐employing the insights of cognitive sociology while crossing thematic (as well as disciplinary) boundaries. Then, we examine four theoretico‐methodological linchpins of CDS, with particular attention to their relationship with symbolic interactionism: the primacy of analytic novelty (and the tool‐like character of sensitizing concepts); the distinct modus operandi regarding the theory‐and‐research‐integration conundrum; the Simmelian legacy of prioritizing geometric and formal dimensions of social features; and the “etic” perspective in re‐constructing sociological problems. Thus, after discussing why CDS should not be judged as appealing only to qualitative scholars, we proceed to present the contributions to the special issue. We conclude this article by briefly stressing the open character of CDS—its essential call for new conceptually guided empirical research.
{"title":"On Doing Concept‐Driven Sociology","authors":"Wayne H. Brekhus, Lorenzo Sabetta","doi":"10.1002/symb.685","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.685","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, we elaborate on both bread‐and‐butter and epistemological features of concept‐driven sociology (CDS). First, we highlight the specific link between this framework and Zerubavel's approach by outlining how CDS is especially suited to deepen the understanding of unmarked dimensions and intersubjective phenomena, reflexively re‐employing the insights of cognitive sociology while crossing thematic (as well as disciplinary) boundaries. Then, we examine four theoretico‐methodological linchpins of CDS, with particular attention to their relationship with symbolic interactionism: the primacy of analytic novelty (and the tool‐like character of sensitizing concepts); the distinct modus operandi regarding the theory‐and‐research‐integration conundrum; the Simmelian legacy of prioritizing geometric and formal dimensions of social features; and the “etic” perspective in re‐constructing sociological problems. Thus, after discussing why CDS should not be judged as appealing only to qualitative scholars, we proceed to present the contributions to the special issue. We conclude this article by briefly stressing the open character of CDS—its essential call for new conceptually guided empirical research.","PeriodicalId":47804,"journal":{"name":"Symbolic Interaction","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-02-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140413776","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Don't Bite the Hand that Feeds You: Dogs, People, and Dispute","authors":"Andrea Laurent‐Simpson","doi":"10.1002/symb.688","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.688","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47804,"journal":{"name":"Symbolic Interaction","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-02-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140411906","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The COVID‐19 pandemic has catalyzed debates about how the public and leaders respond to health threats and the role that the media and emotions play in these responses. Predating COVID‐19, the 2014 Ebola outbreak can serve as a case to examine the constructions and pervasiveness of fear discourse and other emotions in news and social media. In this mixed‐method study, we examine fear discourse in web‐based and traditional newspaper headlines and emergent emotions in social media data (Twitter) during the peak of Ebola coverage. Users discuss fear on Twitter in a variety of ways and there was an increase in Tweets following the first Ebola case in the United States. However, it is humor, not fear, that is the most dominant theme in Twitter responses. Claims by health leaders and media scholars, that information technology and social media spread fear, receive limited support. Prevalence of different emotions vary across format (headlines and social media) and have important implications for understanding the myths and realities of public responses to health threats.
{"title":"Viral Fear or Panic Myth? Emotions in Ebola News and Social Media Responses","authors":"M. Cottingham","doi":"10.1002/symb.681","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.681","url":null,"abstract":"The COVID‐19 pandemic has catalyzed debates about how the public and leaders respond to health threats and the role that the media and emotions play in these responses. Predating COVID‐19, the 2014 Ebola outbreak can serve as a case to examine the constructions and pervasiveness of fear discourse and other emotions in news and social media. In this mixed‐method study, we examine fear discourse in web‐based and traditional newspaper headlines and emergent emotions in social media data (Twitter) during the peak of Ebola coverage. Users discuss fear on Twitter in a variety of ways and there was an increase in Tweets following the first Ebola case in the United States. However, it is humor, not fear, that is the most dominant theme in Twitter responses. Claims by health leaders and media scholars, that information technology and social media spread fear, receive limited support. Prevalence of different emotions vary across format (headlines and social media) and have important implications for understanding the myths and realities of public responses to health threats.","PeriodicalId":47804,"journal":{"name":"Symbolic Interaction","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139960170","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Immediacy: Our Ways of Coping in Everyday Life","authors":"David A. Nock","doi":"10.1002/symb.682","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.682","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47804,"journal":{"name":"Symbolic Interaction","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-01-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139608642","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Excerpted from my book Generally Speaking, this paper introduces “concept‐driven sociology,” a special way of theorizing designed to reveal abstract social patterns. As such, it examines the methodological process by which we can “distill” generic patterns from the culturally, historically, and situationally specific contexts in which we encounter them. It thus champions a “generic sociology” that is pronouncedly transcontextual (transcultural, transhistorical, transsituational, and translevel) in its scope. In order to uncover generic, transcontextual social patterns, we need to collect our data in a wide range of social contexts. Such contextual diversity is manifested multi‐culturally, multihistorically, multisituationally, as well as at multiple levels of social aggregation. True to its message, the book illustrates generic social patterns by drawing on numerous examples from diverse cultural contexts and historical periods and a wide range of diverse social domains, as well as by disregarding scale. Emphasizing cross‐contextual commonality, concept‐driven sociology tries to reveal formal “parallels” across seemingly disparate contexts. The paper features the four main types of cross‐contextual analogies concept‐driven sociologists tend to use—cross‐cultural, cross‐historical, cross‐domain, as well as cross‐level—disregarding conventionally noted substantive differences in order to note conventionally disregarded formal equivalences.
{"title":"Concept‐Driven Sociology","authors":"E. Zerubavel","doi":"10.1002/symb.680","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.680","url":null,"abstract":"Excerpted from my book Generally Speaking, this paper introduces “concept‐driven sociology,” a special way of theorizing designed to reveal abstract social patterns. As such, it examines the methodological process by which we can “distill” generic patterns from the culturally, historically, and situationally specific contexts in which we encounter them. It thus champions a “generic sociology” that is pronouncedly transcontextual (transcultural, transhistorical, transsituational, and translevel) in its scope. In order to uncover generic, transcontextual social patterns, we need to collect our data in a wide range of social contexts. Such contextual diversity is manifested multi‐culturally, multihistorically, multisituationally, as well as at multiple levels of social aggregation. True to its message, the book illustrates generic social patterns by drawing on numerous examples from diverse cultural contexts and historical periods and a wide range of diverse social domains, as well as by disregarding scale. Emphasizing cross‐contextual commonality, concept‐driven sociology tries to reveal formal “parallels” across seemingly disparate contexts. The paper features the four main types of cross‐contextual analogies concept‐driven sociologists tend to use—cross‐cultural, cross‐historical, cross‐domain, as well as cross‐level—disregarding conventionally noted substantive differences in order to note conventionally disregarded formal equivalences.","PeriodicalId":47804,"journal":{"name":"Symbolic Interaction","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-01-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139610125","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}