Symbolic Interaction And Ethnographic Research

Examines a series of theoretical and methodological issues faced by social scientists in interpretive and ethnographic studies of human group life.

Examines a series of theoretical and methodological issues faced by social scientists in interpretive and ethnographic studies of human group life.

To mark 40 volumes of Studies in Symbolic Interaction, this volume includes a special introduction from Series Editor, Norman K. Denzin. This 40th volume advances critical discourse on several fronts.

Identity is never just an individual matter; it is intricately shaped by our experiences of social life. Taking a Symbolic Interactionist approach, and drawing on Goffman’s dramaturgical theory, Susie Scott explores the micro-social processes of interaction through which identities are created, maintained, challenged and reinvented. With a focus on empirical studies as illustrations, classic sociological theory is applied to contemporary examples. Each chapter focuses on a key dimension of how identities are negotiated in the drama of everyday life, from politeness and face-saving rituals to secrecy, lies and deception. Goffman’s ideas are explored in relation to self-presentation, role-making, group interaction and public behaviour, while language and discourse are shown to help people to give credible identity performances and to frame social situations. The book reveals how social selves change over the life course through stigma, labelling and deviant careers, and how life in a total institution can radically transform its members' identities. Through all of these processes, self and society are shown to be intertwined. This insightful approach will appeal to students taking a range of courses in the sociology of the self, identity, interaction and everyday life

To mark 40 volumes of Studies in Symbolic Interaction, this volume includes a special introduction from Series Editor, Norman K. Denzin. This 40th volume advances critical discourse on several fronts.

The essays in this bi-annual series consist of original research and theory within the general sociological perspective known as symbolic interactionism. Longer than conventional journal-length articles, the essays wed micro and macro concerns within a qualitative, ethnographic, autoethnographic and performance studies orientation.

The author builds on the broader interpretive/constructionist ethnographic and pragmatist traditions, particularly those developed within symbolic interaction to provide an agenda to refocus, revitalize, and synthesize the social or human sciences. Robert Prus offers a set of primary assumptions that centrally respect the unique (and uniquely enabling) features of the human condition, as well as considers a reformulation of the cultural problematic. By viewing human group life as a subcultural mosaic that is more or less continuously "in the making," a systematic research agenda for attending to the entire realm of human involvement is developed; one that opens every single arena of human endeavor to ethnographic inquiry.