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Creating “Windows of Opportunity”: How Police Officers Sense and Generate Momentum for Gaining Control in Police‐Civilian Interactions Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2024-03-12 Laura D. Keesman
This article examines how police officers generate momentum and create opportunities for gaining control in—what they perceive as—potentially violent interactions. Theoretically, the article aims to add to interactionist sociology by illuminating the mechanisms through which participants anticipate and create shared meanings of future possibilities for an encounter. I build upon insights into the function
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Collective Inattention in an Online Milk-Sharing Community: Rules of Relevance and the COVID-19 Vaccine Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2024-03-05 Amy Singer
This article examines a complete collection of posts made within two of the largest online peer-to-peer breastmilk-sharing communities in the United States, collected during the first month after the COVID-19 vaccine became available to all U.S. adults. I propose that such communities support not only the circulation of human milk among strangers but also the circulation of widely shared attentional
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Don't Bite the Hand that Feeds You: Dogs, People, and Dispute Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2024-02-29 Andrea Laurent‐Simpson
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On Doing Concept‐Driven Sociology Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2024-02-29 Wayne H. Brekhus, Lorenzo Sabetta
In this article, we elaborate on both bread‐and‐butter and epistemological features of concept‐driven sociology (CDS). First, we highlight the specific link between this framework and Zerubavel's approach by outlining how CDS is especially suited to deepen the understanding of unmarked dimensions and intersubjective phenomena, reflexively re‐employing the insights of cognitive sociology while crossing
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Viral Fear or Panic Myth? Emotions in Ebola News and Social Media Responses Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2024-02-17 Marci D. Cottingham
The COVID-19 pandemic has catalyzed debates about how the public and leaders respond to health threats and the role that the media and emotions play in these responses. Predating COVID-19, the 2014 Ebola outbreak can serve as a case to examine the constructions and pervasiveness of fear discourse and other emotions in news and social media. In this mixed-method study, we examine fear discourse in web-based
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Concept-Driven Sociology Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2024-01-21 Eviatar Zerubavel
Excerpted from my book Generally Speaking, this paper introduces “concept-driven sociology,” a special way of theorizing designed to reveal abstract social patterns. As such, it examines the methodological process by which we can “distill” generic patterns from the culturally, historically, and situationally specific contexts in which we encounter them. It thus champions a “generic sociology” that
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The Functioning of the Self During the Interlinkage of Action: A Radical Interactionist Perspective Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2023-12-04 Lonnie Athens
The present-day state of our knowledge of the self as a soliloquy has not moved far beyond where the American pragmatists, John Dewey and George Herbert Mead, left it almost a century ago. Since their writings underpin the view of the self that current followers of the perspective of symbolic interactionism have adopted, their work still remain relevant today. To advance the development of the self
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Hard Work and Fun: Collective Online Interaction in a Case of Photo Fraud Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2023-12-03 Veronika Burcar Alm, Erik Hannerz, David Wästerfors
Online platforms devoted to investigating criminal cases or mysteries are often seen as reaching outwards to identify suspects, promote punishment, and try to solve cases. Simultaneously, internal interactions between posters motivate them to contribute, even to outdo one another, and so a team spirit emerges. This article analyzes a lengthy thread on a Swedish Internet discussion forum, Flashback
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Undermining the Moral Obligations of Manhood Acts Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2023-11-27 Chris M. Vidmar
Hybrid masculinities—men's integration of previously marginalized characteristics into acceptable performances of manhood—are emergent in contemporary gender studies. While some scholars see egalitarian promise in these configurations of manhood, their utility in improving gender equality is contested. Drawing from an ethnography of a profeminist Batterer Intervention Program (BIP), I utilize prominent
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Conducting Sensitive Interviews Online Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2023-11-20 Outi Kähäri, Kristel Edelman
We explore the role of embodied messages for the interaction order when conducting sensitive biographical research online. Our analysis indicates that mediated situations take shape continuously and are extremely open to different kinds of interaction orderings, including disruptions. Interaction in online interviews is influenced by increased fluidity and intensity caused by the synthetic situation
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Conflict Over Conspiracy Theories: Face-Work, Epistemic Identity, and the Structure of Interactions Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2023-11-07 Jennifer M. Whitmer, Meggan M. Jordan
Existing research on conspiracy theories rarely examines their impact on interaction or how these theories are perceived by non-believers. We conducted in-depth interviews with twenty non-believers whose family members believed in the QAnon conspiracy theory. Using face-work as the main framework, findings reveal the role of face in the structure of encounters between believers and non-believers. Non-believing
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The Social Movement Social Club: How Activists Form Tiny Publics Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2023-10-02 J. L. Johnson
Fair Share Senior Activism, Tiny Publics, and the Culture of Resistance By Gary Alan Fine (University of Chicago Press, 2023)
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The Spirituality of Carceral Citizenship: “Making Your Test Your Testimony” Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2023-09-13 Michael Hallett
Through participant observation of the redemption-focused identity work of formerly incarcerated citizens affiliated with an urban faith-based nonprofit organization run by ex-offenders, this paper examines religiously motivated desistance among eighteen male respondents who attribute lasting desistance to intense religiosity. Recent research portrays the “identity work” of criminal justice-involved
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Can't Buy Me Love: Gift-Giving Among Members of Criminal Organizations Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2023-08-30 Shirly Bar-Lev, Michal Morag
This paper problematizes gift relations in criminal organizations. It adopts a symbolic interaction perspective to focus scholarly attention on the way in which actants skillfully maneuver within the social expectations inherent in gift-giving relations. The study is based on insights from twenty interviews with ex-convicts and ten interviews with police officers or associates, and an in-depth analysis
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Gender Category and Gender Status: A Critical Distinction Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2023-08-23 Jesse Kolber
Gender has been of explicit analytical interest in sociology for decades. Despite its centrality to the field, “gender” eludes conceptual specificity in significant ways, such as lacking distinction between gender category (identification as a man, woman, nonbinary, etc.) and gender status (the state of being cisgender or not). I contend that the cisgender status is a rich site of interpersonal and
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Black Interactionist Thought and the Lived-Experience Approach to Symbolic Interactionism Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2023-08-06 Christopher T. Conner, Kenya Massey, Julien Grayer
Du Bois is often regarded as an important scholar for his contributions to the development of sociology. However, less is known about his work in developing interactionist thought. This essay is an introduction to this special issue, and a small attempt to acknowledge the work of scholars of color within the interactionist tradition. The Du Bosian approach to sociology has for too long been dismissed
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W. E. B. Du Bois as Interactionist: Reflections on the Canonical Incorporation of a Marginalized Scholar Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2023-08-02 Natalia Ruiz-Junco, Salvador Vidal-Ortiz
Recent scholarship explores the relevance and canonical status of W. E. B. Du Bois in sociological theory; yet less is said about his contributions to symbolic interactionism. This paper interrogates the emerging meaning of W. E. B. Du Bois for sociology, and the nature of his canonical incorporation. We explore the less “official” dimensions of Du Boisian theory, and in particular two of his contributions
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Teaching Up: The Intersection of Impression Management and Controlling Images for Black, Cisgender, Women Faculty Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2023-06-27 Celeste Atkins, Christina Kalel
This is a qualitative study of Black cisgender women's faculty experiences using an interactionist framework. Relying on in-depth interviews, we explore the experiences of eight Black, cisgender, women, sociology faculty across the United States in various tenure and non-tenure roles at different institutions (community college, teaching college, and research universities). Participants engaged in
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Former Athletes' Illness Stories of Brain Injuries: Suspected Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy and the Entanglement of Never-Aging Masculinities Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2023-04-28 Deana Simonetto, Michelle Tucsok
Examining former athletes' health-related beliefs and behaviors on the long-term effects of concussions and potentially developing chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) offers a domain to understand how men renegotiate their masculinities. In this paper, we explore how the cultural production of the concussion crisis shapes the ways in which men athletes make sense of self and their masculinity in
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“We Come Not Here to Talk”—Revisiting the Work of Anna Julia Cooper: An Analysis of Standpoint Theory and Her Placement in the Academic Canon Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2023-02-09 Kimberly Martinez Phillips
This paper examines the writings and influence of Anna Julia Cooper. The honest, historical narrative of scholarship is in question when theorists of color are repeatedly forgotten or removed from the academic record. Anna Julia Cooper is just one example of someone who has been overlooked. I detail how Cooper's analysis of group identity, located in shared experience, provided the groundwork for intersectional
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Corporeal Interactions in VRChat: Situational Intensity and Body Synchronization Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2023-01-31 Felix Krell, Nico Wettmann
Erving Goffman's work on interaction in everyday life focuses on joint spatio-temporal and face-to-face situations and denies the constitution of social situations via mediatized interaction. In contrast, we argue that shared immersive media such as Social Virtual Reality enable intense, delocalized forms of co-present interactions that constitute closeness and intimacy. By discussing Goffman in the
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Black Ethnographic Activists: Exploring Robert Park, Scientific Racism, The Chicago School, and FBI Files Through the Black Sociological Experience of Charles S. Johnson and E. Franklin Frazier Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2023-01-31 Shane Blackman
Charles S. Johnson and E. Franklin Frazier were successful Black sociologists from the 1920s to 1960s, working in an age of scientific racism and eugenics, who battled racial oppression, racist discrimination, and surveillance under the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Both struggled within and against the assimilationist paradigm, yet their ethnographic and critical insights speak out today with continuing
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David R. Maines: Embedding Symbolic Interactionism at the Heart of Sociology Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2022-12-12 Jeffery T. Ulmer
David R. Maines was a key founder of the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction, and a champion of symbolic interactionist sociology. Maines fought against characterizations of symbolic interactionism as astructural and “subjectivist.” He was adamant that symbolic interactionism offered vital perspectives on the study of social structure and organization, and that it was compatible with a variety
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Police Accounts of Body-Worn Camera Footage In News Media Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2022-11-12 Christopher J. Schneider
People offer accounts in response to actions that are subjected to valuative inquiry. Recordings of police actions captured on body-worn camera (BWC) video can become subject to valuative inquiry when footage is publicly released. This footage may possibly undermine police legitimacy. Managing legitimacy is a basic rationale for why police provide accounts in response to their conduct. Proponents of
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Framing the Purchase of Human Goods: Cosmetic Surgery Consumption in Capitalist South Korea Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2022-11-06 Anson Au
Sociological and cultural research on market participation has been preoccupied with creative markets and traditional labor markets, overlooking alternate types of markets, particularly those of human goods which have proliferated in Asia. This article analyzes South Korea's cosmetic surgery market to examine how and why consumers participate in markets of human goods on the microlevel vis-à-vis macrolevel
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Group Styles of Justice or Service: How Ticket Inspectors Manage Contested Citizen Encounters Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2022-10-02 Camilla Bank Friis
People who interact with citizens in their job often have to use discretion when facing complex situations. Research shows that how people understand their job regulates this use of discretion. Yet, little research has conceptualized how group culture shapes these understandings and discretionary actions in real-life citizen encounters. This article addresses this gap with a microsociological theory
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“Brexit Means Brexit!”: Investigating the Production of Social Phenomena in Political Discourses Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2022-09-30 Imko Meyenburg
The United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union, known as Brexit, is arguably the most important political, social, and economic phenomenon in British post-WWII history. This paper analyses parliamentary debates from December 2018 concerning the European Withdrawal Act, focusing on the epistemic modality of Member of Parliaments' (MP) statements, to investigate the ontology of Brexit. Epistemic
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Instantiated Recoupling in Principals' Enactment of Teacher Evaluations: Emotion Work and New Forms of Ceremonial Conformity in Educational Institutions Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2022-08-30 Christopher P. Duncan, Judson G. Everitt
As accountability policies have proliferated and evolved in a number of organizational fields, recent scholarship in organizational sociology has paid close attention to the ways that accountability has forced tight coupling in a variety of organizations. Fewer recent studies examine efforts at ceremonial conformity that organizations may use to buffer internal practices from institutional pressures
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St. Clair Drake, the Chicago School, and the Emergence of a New Urban Black Perspective Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2022-07-28 Roger Salerno
St. Clair Drake was responsible for a major shift in the way urban sociologists studied cities. While educated by Chicago school scholars in sociology and anthropology, such as Robert Park and Ernest Burgess, Drake was one of many Black doctoral students who veered from the dominant perspective of his White teachers on race. His skills in ethnographic research were indebted not only to Park and Burgess
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Put Your “Hand Emotes in the Air:” Twitch Concerts as Unsuccessful Large-Scale Interaction Rituals Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2022-06-24 Femke Vandenberg
Recent years have seen mediated concerts grow in popularity. As physical events, concerts accommodate both small- and large-scale interaction. However, the extent to which these interactions establish emotional energy online is debated. Combining video observations and video elicitation interviews with participants of live music on the online platform Twitch, this paper explores this growing form of
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Erving Goffman on Misinformation and Information Control: The Conduct of Contemporary Russian Information Operations Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2022-06-14 Martin Innes, Andrew Dawson
Misinformation is a social problem increasingly, and routinely, commanding significant political and public attention. Less well known is that Erving Goffman was writing about misinformation as early as 1953 in his PhD thesis. Subsequent to which, he wrote repeatedly about the social organization and conduct of “information control” across several of his most influential publications. This article
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Politics of Crisis: Threatening and Defending Journalistic Expertise—A Processual Account Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2022-05-27 Alexander Antony, Silke Steets, Michaela Pfadenhauer
In this article, we argue for making the frequently invoked notion of “crises of journalism” itself the proper subject of sociological analysis. Based on a case study of a public controversy over an adversarial TV interview with a well-known politician on Austria's public service broadcaster ORF, we provide an analysis of the practical use of crisis claims in metajournalistic discourse. Drawing on
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Birthing A Secret Creative Self in Suppressive Organizations Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2022-05-17 Shirly Bar-Lev, Michal Morag
This paper explores the birth of a secret creative self within suppressive or silencing organizations, such as cults, by focusing on concrete instances in which members of such organizations challenge the organization's leadership and norms. Building on Goffman's concept of the backstage, it considers how cult members create both physical and mental backspaces to allow the birth of a secret creative
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The Impartial Judge: Judging and Emotional Labor Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2022-04-11 Marci Cottingham
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Multimodality: A Springboard for the Analysis of Identity in Human Interaction Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2022-04-06 Yao Wang,Pengfei Huang
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Erich Fromm and Global Public Sociology Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2022-03-21 David A. Nock
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Lifeworld and Deathworld in Human and Nonhuman Animal Relationships Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2022-03-09 Krzysztof T. Konecki
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“We Never Imagined:” Animals and Vulnerability in Contexts of Disaster Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2022-03-02 Andrea Laurent‐Simpson
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“Being Mean” and “Spazzing Out:” Social Calibration and Gender in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Training Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2022-02-28 Brigid E. K. Burke
This article draws on ethnographic data from a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu gym to describe “social calibration” as ongoing interstitial work through which actors assess expectations of intensity and adjust their behaviors and dispositions accordingly. It explores two intensity breaches at the gym: “spazzing out” and not “being mean” enough. Using a microsociological lens, it analyses gym members' understandings
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Inequality, Rules of Irrelevance, and Recognition in Broken Friendships Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2022-02-16 Laura Eramian, Peter Mallory
Friendship depends on equality, yet friends are seldom fully equal. In this article, we investigate failed and difficult friendships through attention to the relationship between (in)equality, recognition, and “rules of irrelevance.” Based on interviews in an Atlantic Canadian city, we argue that since friendship offers the chance to develop an identity and be recognized as a whole person, it encounters
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The Continuities of Twitter Strategies and Algorithmic Terror Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2022-01-31 Michael Dellwing
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Negotiating Hope: Cultural Health Capital's Role in the Health Care System Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2022-01-28 Lillian Wynne Platten
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Eigendynamik of Contemporary Administration Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2022-01-27 Beata Pawłowska
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“I Say I Work at the University:” Norwegian Professors and Passing as Interaction Ritual Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2022-01-04 Anders Vassenden, Ingrid Rusnes
This paper extends the study of passing to a privileged identity. From qualitative interviews, we examine Norwegian professors' everyday self-presentation. When in new encounters, like meeting other parents through their children's leisure activities, our respondents' leave their occupation and especially title undisclosed before cautiously negotiating possible disclosure. The existing literature mostly
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A Call to Protect Both Humans and Non‐Humans in Disasters Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2021-12-09 Jessica Austin
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Authentic Identities in Late‐Modern Globalized Social Scenes Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2021-11-25 Gordon C. Chang
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Diagnosis: Prestige Hierarchy Located in the Medical Profession Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2021-11-23 Jason Rodriquez
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Creative Visions in New York City's Contemporary Art Scene Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2021-10-29 Henrik Fürst
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On the Racial Imaginary as a Social Imaginary Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2021-10-26 Robert Wade Kenny,Marie Kettlie Andre
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The Silicone Self: Examining Sexual Selfhood and Stigma within the Love and Sex Doll Community Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2021-10-25 Kenneth R. Hanson
While previous research has theorized the potential benefits and consequences of intimate relationships with robots and dolls, little empirical research has been conducted on today's love and sex doll owners. By drawing on digital ethnographic data and interviews with 41 love and sex doll community members, I explore how love and sex doll owners account for their transgressive sex practice. I argue
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From Engagement to Disengagement in a Psychiatric Assessment Process Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2021-10-25 Anssi Peräkylä, Liisa Voutilainen, Maarit Lehtinen, Mariel Wuolio
In a longitudinal conversation analytical (CA) case study, we examined patient engagement in a psychiatric assessment process (nine clinical interviews) with a young woman who eventually received the diagnosis of personality disorder. Based on Goffman, we consider engagement in interaction as consisting of three facets: engagement in the action at hand, bodily engagement with the co-participant, and
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Transgender Possibilities and the Cisgendering of Family among Cisgender Women Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2021-09-13 J. E. Sumerau, Giuseppina Valle Holway
In this article, we examine vocabularies of motive concerning the possibility of transgender partners and children. Data from 20 in-depth interviews with (mostly white) cisgender college-aged women in the southeastern United States were analyzed to determine how they construct familial ideals predicated upon cisgender norms and assumptions. Participants respond to the possibility of transgender family
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Garfinkel's Careful Examination of Parsons' Theory of Social Action as a Solution for the Problem of Social Order Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2021-09-09 Nozomi Ikeya
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A “High Lonesome Sound” Calling you Home Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2021-09-04 Lee Robert Blackstone
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“I don't say that I'm a who's who”: Negotiating Identity through Humility Work Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2021-08-31 SunAh M. Laybourn
Research identifies how individuals negotiate undesirable assumptions of group membership through imbuing an identity with new meaning, reframing auxiliary characteristics, or introducing new criteria. When these strategies are limited, how do members retain the identity while navigating the negative inferences? To answer this question, this study examines identification and authentication processes
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Dressed for Death: Gender, Respectability, and Resistance at the Gallows Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2021-08-23 Annulla Linders, Erynn Masi de Casanova, Kyle Shupe
In this paper we examine the dress of execution victims. Executions provide both the convict and the state with an opportunity to claim honor and respectability. Drawing on newspaper accounts of executions conducted between 1840 and 1940, we demonstrate that convict attire reveals an important tension between the convicts' gendered character claims and the efforts by execution managers to arrange a
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Performing Authenticity, Multidimensionality, and Mobility Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2021-08-15 John C. Pruit
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Managing Clients and Making Sales: Exploring Agent‐Client Relations Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2021-08-13 Scott Grills
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Mcclesky V . Kemp : How the U.S. Supreme Court Shut Down the Ability to Challenge Systemic Racism in the Death Penalty Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.615) Pub Date : 2021-08-13 Jeffery T. Ulmer