The Faultline of Consciousness: A View of Interactionism in Sociology / Edition 1

by David Maines

Overview

In this compendium of related and cross-referential essays, David R. Maines draws from pragmatist/symbolic interactionist assumptions to formulate a consistent new view of the entire field of sociology. Suitable for courses in social theory, qualitative methods, social psychology, and narrative inquiry, this volume will change the way the general public looks at interpretive sociology.This book is organized as an expression of the centrality of interactionism to general sociology. Each chapter is designed to articulate this view of the field. Symbolic interactionism, the way Maines has come to understand and use it, is essentially the concerted application of pragmatist principles of philosophy to social inquiry.There are four basic elements to this characterization. First, people transform themselves: people are self-aware beings who reflexively form their conduct and thus are capable of adjusting their lines of action and creating new ones. Second, people transform their social worlds: human action takes place in contexts of situations and social worlds. People can modify the social matrices in which they act, and thus people are agents of change. Third, people engage in social dialogue: communication is generic and is at the heart of both stability and change. A fourth element is that people respond to and deal with their transformations. Humans construct situations and societies; they establish social structures and cultures. These are the consequences of human action and, once formed, they reflexively function to direct and channel conduct.Maines argues that when people do things together they can create enduring group formations, such as divisions of labor, rules for inheritance, wage-labor relations, or ideologies. These are instances of group characteristics that influence human conduct and indeed are not reducible to the traits of individuals making up the group or society.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780202306469
Publisher:	Transaction Publishers
Publication date:	07/31/2001
Series:	Sociological Imagination & Structural Change Series
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	307
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

David R. Maines is professor and chair of sociology and anthropology at Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, where he teaches courses on urban sociology and social stratification. He was one of the founding members of the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction, and in 1999 received the SSSI George Herbert Mead Award for lifetime contributions to scholarship.

Table of Contents

1: The Interactionism of Contemporary Sociology; I: Theoretical Concerns; 2: G. H. Mead’s Theory of Time and Social Order; 3: Herbert Blumer’s Theory of Industrialization and Social Change; 4: Consequential Distortions of Robert Park’s Theory of Human Ecology; II: Empirical Studies; 5: Reconstructive Legitimacy in Final Reports of Contract Research; 6: Urban Inequality and Detroit Archdiocesan Reorganization; 7: Somali Migration to Canada and Resistance to Racialization; III: Narrative Sociology; 8: Narrative, Gender, and the Problematics of Role; 9: Narrative Structures and Incest; 10: Narrative Structures and Social Institutions; IV: Epilogue; 11: The Edges of Interactionism