of social action. Later, micro-sociologists began to examine the way that even everyday interactions are supported by the meanings produced and maintained in social interaction. Here, Mead’s emphasis on the role of verbal and non-verbal symbols in the creation of meaning becomes central to micro-sociology. Although we are all born with the capacity to interpret symbols, it is only through the use of such symbols in interaction that humans acquire a “self” – a sense of who we are in the world. In this way, micro-sociologists stress the intersubjective aspects of human existence.
Third, micro-sociologists emphasize lived experience rather than an abstracted (or reified) concept of “society.” The authors in this section generally grant that social institutions, once produced, do confront us as external and “objective” realities. Nevertheless, they focus on the way that human agents experience regularized patterns of social interaction (or “institutions”) and how they support them in both big and small ways. The exchange of symbols allows forming solidarity with others by letting us come to common definitions of the world. Even seemingly banal social institutions, such as greeting rituals, have important symbolic meanings. As the sociologist Harold Garfinkel showed, we rarely recognize the importance of such institutions until they break down.1 When we cannot take such minor routines for granted in our interactions, we have to do a great deal of interpretive work to figure out how to understand each interaction we face. Additionally, as the readings in the following text will argue, our past experiences matter in how we interpret the world. This is why people who meet for the first time, especially when they come from very different backgrounds, have to spend so much more energy to understand one another than do people who see each other every day.
The Development of Micro-Sociological Analysis
Micro-sociology did not develop all at once, nor in the same way. While the core concerns of the authors presented in the following text are common enough to warrant including them in one section, we must take some care to note some of the different traditions of micro-sociological analysis as well. Loosely speaking, the authors in this section represent symbolic interactionism and the “dramaturgical” approach of Erving Goffman.
The major tradition of micro-sociology represented in this section is known as symbolic interactionism – a term coined by Herbert Blumer (1900–1987). For much of his career as a professor at the University of Chicago, Blumer’s work was deeply indebted to Mead, as well as to his colleagues Robert E. Park and W.I. Thomas. Particularly important for Blumer was Mead’s emphasis on the role of symbols in the maintenance of social interaction and the constitution of the self as a social process. In the same manner as Schutz’s phenomenology, symbolic interactionists place a strong emphasis on empiricism rather than on the social realism typified by Durkheimian and functionalist sociology.
The reading included here is from Blumer’s best-known work, Symbolic Interactionism (1969). Blumer begins by defining symbolic interaction as an approach that studies the “natural world of human group life and human conduct.” The reading uses this concept of “naturalistic” studies of social life to issue an extremely sharp critique of functionalist methods. Nestled within this critique is Blumer’s statement about how social analysis ought to be done. Blumer lays out four central claims: people act (in relation to things and each other) on the basis of the meanings attached to them; human interaction (“association”) is necessary for the making of meaning; social acts are necessarily embedded, therefore, in an interpretive process; and because of this, social networks, institutions, and other things are inherently fluid and are always being renegotiated to some extent.
The work of Erving Goffman (1922–1982) is often considered to be part of the tradition of symbolic interactionism (and, indeed, “symbolic interactionism” is often used misleadingly as a term for almost all micro-sociological analysis). Goffman’s graduate work at the University of Chicago overlapped with the last part of Blumer’s stay there, and Goffman later joined Blumer as a colleague at the University of California, Berkeley.2 Nevertheless, Goffman built a body of work distinct from that of Blumer, and indeed distinct from just about everything else in the discipline. His work emphasized how people used symbols in the performance of their social roles. This is often called the “dramaturgical approach” because it suggests that people are always staging their performances for others and analyzes how such performances play out to others. A central concern of Goffman’s work is the tactical repertoire that actors develop in order to manage their social identities and to defend themselves from unwanted scrutiny and the negative appraisal of others. Sometimes, this leads them to act together, as when members of a group put on a team performance to gain what they want from others or when those sharing a common “stigma” (or a marker of an undesirable social identity) frame themselves in less damaging terms.
Like the other authors in this section, Goffman focused on the way that human social interaction makes the social possible. However, in contrast to the other authors in this section, Goffman had a certain affinity with the work of Durkheim. He saw himself as a sort of Durkheimian working on the “micro” side of the social equation. More than any of the other authors in this section, Goffman emphasized the importance of integration in the social process. To be an actor on the social stage requires not only that one claim a role, but it also requires that others recognize the claim, grant it, and act accordingly. Goffman also emphasized the fact that social performances serve broader functional needs. Our performances are done in such a way as to keep social life going smoothly. For example, even when we fail in our performances, others are likely to overlook our mistakes so as not to disrupt everyone’s performances.
The reading included here is from The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. One of the central concepts in the reading is that of “front” – the part of a person’s performance that serves to define a relevant context for the “audience.” Therefore, it includes the props that go along with the physical setting, as well as the clothes, manners, and other symbols that can be used to corroborate the impression that one wishes to convey. The concept is important for pointing out not only the way that performances are realized, but also the degree to which they are situational. For example, it is easy for a person to put on a convincing performance as a serious professor or a diligent student in the context of a classroom – but it is difficult and awkward to maintain the same relation when the professor and a student notice each other in a supermarket or in a tavern.
The contemporary vitality of micro-sociological theory is reflected well in the work of Randall Collins (b. 1941) – one of today’s leading sociologists. Collins has made a number of important contributions to sociological theory, particularly in studies of social order, conflict, historical sociology, and social change. Recently, Collins has proposed a bold theoretical synthesis that builds upon Durkheim’s theory of moral integration through ritual and Goffman’s situational analysis. In his book, Interaction Ritual Chains (2004), from which a reading is taken, Collins contends that rituals are powerful because they instigate social interaction based on bodily co-presence and mutual emotional attunement. When engaged in rituals, individuals feel solidarity with one another and imagine themselves to be members of a common undertaking; they become infused with emotional energy and exhilaration; they establish and reinforce collective symbols, moral representations of the group that ought to be defended and reinforced; and they react angrily to insults toward or the profanation of these symbols. Yet this is not a functional account of social order; drawing on Goffman, Collins shows how actors are obliged to perform in chains of ritual encounters which they can attempt to manipulate but which may also fail to produce emotional energy and attachment.
In analyzing a diverse range of social behaviors from the veneration of the 9/11 “Ground Zero” site, to the enactment of social status differences, to drug consumption to sexual intercourse, Collins observes similar features of common emotional entrainment, the production of symbolic focal objects that become invested with the emotional energy of ritual participants, and the continuation or transformation of social relations as rituals either link performances into chains of interaction into the future or produce dissonant emotions that lead social relations to
