Scholarly context
The nature of symbolic interactionism
Nature of:
- HUMAN SOCIETY OR
HUMAN GROUP LIFE
George Herbert Mead, John Dewey and more
Three premises:
1.
Human beings act toward things on the basis of the meaning that the thing have for them.
2.
The meaning of things is derived from the social interaction that one has with one’s fellows.
3.
These meanings are handled in and modified through an interpretative process used by the person in dealing with the things she enocunters. the root images of social interactionism
Human groups or socity consist fundamentally of action.
Society exists in action – structure/organization is a process of fitting together actions.
- SOCIAL
INTERACTION
One’s own action needs to be fitted with the actions of the other.
G.H. Mead “The conversation of gestures” (non-symbolic interact.)
“ The use of significant symbols” (symbolic interaction)
- NATURE OF OBJECTS Individual worlds are made up of objects (physical, social, abstract). An object is anything that can be referred – the meaning it has for whom it is an object.
- THE HUMAN BEING
AS AN ACTING
ORGANISM
> Natural parallel to semiotic theory: connotations and private associations.
The human being as possessing a self – can be an object of its own action. The self-object emerges from social interaction with other people. The subject placing her/himself in the position of others.
> Interacting with oneself. Self-interaction as making indication to oneself.
Social An organism that engages in social interaction with itself by making indications to itself and responding to these indications. That is, a process of interpretation out of which action arises.
- OF HUMAN ACTION The need to interpret the world in order to act.
- INTERLINKAGE OF
ACTION
“Joint action” – a societal organization of conduct or different acts of diverse participants.
often repetetive and stable, yet evolving.
Methodological principles of empirical science
Idealism
The extended connection of actions make up much of human life. Systems.
-
Any instance of joint action arises from previous actions.
A premise of an empirically existing world that can be studied.
The “world of reality” exists only as it is interpreted and
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The resistance of the empirical world
Methodology
Lifting the veils of the empirical world
EXPLORATION
(depiction) comprehended by the individual. Exists only in human experience.
An incontestable position, but: does not shift “reality” from the empirical world to the realm of the imaginary and conception.
A solipstic position is untenable.
An obdurate character that is the mark of reality.
The role of empirical science to develop theory and conceptions despite the stubborness of reality.
Covers the principles that underlie and guide the full process of studying the obdurate charather of the given empirical world.
1.
Methodology concerns the whole scientific process – not only some initial must-have.
2.
Each part of the scientific quest has to fit the obdurate character of the empirical world.
3.
The empirical world provides the ultimate answer to the questions posed.
Blumer here pretty agressively attacks a solely quantitative approach to social sciences.
By getting close to the area and digging deep into through careful study.
Through analysis of its two fundamental parts:
Exploration and inspection --> Direct naturalistic examination of the empirical social world.
Basically about the value of exploratory studies, with an initial broad focus that is sharpened as the inquiry proceeds. Not dependent on particular sets of techniques.
The importance of seeking participants with knowledge
INSPECTION
(analysis) on the area of study. Informants.
The importance of letting the empirical material, lead the development of concepts and images.
Goal Develop a comprehensive picture of the area of study.
Descriptive information provides answers to theoretical questions. BUT, a theoretical schema is not a priori necessary.
The examination of the empirical world needs to be cast in a theoretical form. But there should be no conventional protocol, which would only serve to limit the empirical analysis. definition “(…) an intensive focused examination of the empirical content of whatever analytial elements are used for
Methodological orientation purposes of analysis, and the same kind of examination of the empirical nature of the relations between such elements” (43).
Procedure Examining analytical elements from different angles.
Flexible, creative, imaginative.
“Operationalising” is not the answer.
How does one study human group life and social action?
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1. People act on the basis of the meaning of their objects.
2. Group life as a process in which people indicate lines of action to each other and interpret the indicatins of others.
3. Social acts are constructed thorugh a process in which the actors note, interpret and assess the situations confronting them.
4. The complex interlinkage of acts that comprise organization, institutions and like, are moving affairs.
Conclusion
In order to understand the action of people, it is necessary to see the objects as they seem them.
To place oneself in the position of the individual/collective.
-
To identify the objects one needs a body of relevant observations.
-
To guard against proneness. Deliberate testing of a priori images.
Social interaction as a formative process in its own right.
Life and spheres as moving processes in which participants define and interpret each other’s acts.
Lack of warrant for compressing the process of social interaction into a special form. The variety of forms of interction opposes such standardisation. The task of the researcher is to explore the characteristics of the specific form of interaction.
Need to see social action in terms of the actor. The actor constructs her/his own social action. Possible by virtue of being able to interact with her/himself – selfinteraction.
The human being is not a merely responding organism, but rather an acting organism.
In order to analyze social action, one has to observe the process by which it is constructed.
Large societal organizations as arrangements of people who are interlinked in their respective actions. Seeks explanation in the way in which participants define, interpret and meet situations at their respective points.
“Respect the nature of the empirical world and organize a methodological stance to reflect that respect” (60).
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Clearly an inspiration for
Blumer
The Self
Human group life as essential for human consciousness, the mind, the world of objects, selves, and human conduct in the form of constructed acts.
The human as an organism possessing a self, converts the human into an actor with a reflexive relation to the world, and an object to itself.
Self-interaction with which to meet the world. Interpreting the objects of the world, not merely responding in an automatic way.
The self as a process Not as a structure. Process – reflexivity. Puts the human being over against her/his world, not merely in it.
The Act Making indications to her/himself and interpreting these indications --> forges together a piece of action. Action as a conduct, which is constructed by the actor instead of
Social interaction
Interpretation and definition
1. A formative process Human interaction as a positive shaping process in its own right. Constant interpretation (and reinterpretation).
2. Continually fitting conduct to one another
--> 3. Symbolic interactionism generic
-
Symbolic interaction: interpret gestures
(indications) and act on the basis of the interpreted meaning.
Ascertaining the meaning of actions
Conveying indications to others as to how she/he is to act.
<-- interaction as a process.
Through a dual process of definition and interpretation.
Able to cover the full range of the generic forms of human association. Always the same common task of constructing acts by interpreting and defining the acts of each other.
Objects response elicited from a preformed organization.
-
Non-symbolic interaction: responding directly to gestrures and actions.
Objects as human constructs - as anything that can be referred to or designated.
1.
The nature of the object is constituted by the meaning it has for the person for whom it is an
Joint action object.
2.
This meaning arises from how the person is prepared to act toward it.
3.
All objects are social products – formed and tranformed by the defining process in social interactions.
4.
People are prepared toward objects on the basis of the meaning it has for them.
5.
One can organize one’s actions toward it.
(Mead: social act).
The larger collective form of action that is constituted by the fitting together of the lines of behaviour of the
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separate participants.
Fitting together by interpreting and defining each other’s acts. Actions within a broader social context.
The essence of society Lies in an ongoing process of action.
Uncertainty, contigency, transformation.
Methodologically
Society is not an
Study of action has to be made from the pov. of the actor
– tale the role of the actor.
Rather seen as people meeting their conditions of life. established structure
Still structure is important The importance of social roles, status positions, institutions, social codes, norms (…).
- they are important only as they enter into the process of interpretation and definition out of which joint actions are formed.
“Culture”
“Social structure”
“Role playing”
Blumer’s critique
The [true] nature of human association
Continuing process of interpretation
> Transaction
A conception of the human group with a body/system of ways of living that predates the infant or newcomer.
Must be acquired, shape their conduct and personal organization.
Arrangement of social positions
People put into different roles according to situations
(and positions).
These conceptions have not been derived from the study of human association as an on-going process.
Two human beings interacting upon each other: the most fundamental form.
Participants take each other into account. Interpretating – identifying the maning of action. Orienting oneself, direction for one’s own conduct.
Constructed in the process of its occurrence.
“Cultural norms, status postitions and role relationships are only frameworks inside of which that process goes on” (116).
But surely Blumer interprets theories of role-playing to strictly? It seems like an idea of roles, does not allow for any independents processes of interpretations?
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