Herbert Blumer did not offer textbook‐style instructions for how to do research. What he offered, in his classic 1969 essay “The Methodological Position of Symbolic Interactionism,” is a broad account of what research must entail to accord with symbolic interactionist premises that human social life depends on meanings, interpretation, and interaction. Blumer's essay also voices a spirit of research that is ardently empirical, sociological, and creative. It is this spirit, I argue, that holds great value for guiding sociological research toward fresh discoveries. I make this argument by reviewing what Blumer meant by exploration and inspection, and then drawing out five Blumerian principles of inquiry. By embracing these principles we can avoid the problems of inadvertent theorizing, unreflective mesearch, analytic foreclosure, excessive subjectivism, and aprocessuality. I also suggest how we can enhance the sociological value of Blumer's method by paying more attention to power, inequality, and our own institutional biases. Embracing the spirit of Blumer's method, I conclude, can help a new generation of symbolic interactionists do more imaginative and insightful work.

中文翻译：

---

布鲁默方法的精神作为社会学发现的指南

赫伯特·布鲁默（Herbert Blumer）没有提供教科书式的研究指导。他在1969年的经典文章《象征性互动主义的方法论立场》中提出的内容广泛地说明了研究必须符合哪些象征性互动主义前提，即人类社会生活取决于意义，解释和互动。Blumer的论文还表达了一种热衷于经验，社会学和创造性的研究精神。我认为，正是这种精神对指导社会学研究走向新发现具有重大价值。我通过回顾Blumer勘探和检查的含义，然后提出五种Blumerian探究原理来提出这一论点。通过采用这些原则，我们可以避免因疏忽大意而导致理论研究，反思性研究，分析止赎，过度的主观主义和无程序性。我还建议我们如何通过更加关注权力，不平等和我们自己的制度偏见来提高布鲁默方法的社会学价值。我得出结论，秉承布鲁默方法的精神，可以帮助新一代的符号互动主义者做更多富有想象力和见解的工作。