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A View from the Margins: How Movements Outside the Mainstream Create and Mobilize Knowledge of Autism Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-09-04 Jason Turowetz
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Beyond Bodily Co‐Presence: A Micro‐Sociological Study of Online Interaction Rituals Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-08-19 Jonatan Mizrahi‐Werner, Lasse Suonperä Liebst, Jakob Demant
Online interactions constitute an ever‐larger part of our everyday lives. However, due to its roots in the study of face‐to‐face encounters, micro‐sociology tends to consider online interaction as a weak substitute for its physical counterpart. The aim of this paper is to critically assess and further develop one of the most influential micro‐sociological theories: Randall Collins' interaction ritual
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Ethics in Crisis? A Paradigm Revolution for Ethical Research in the Social Sciences Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-08-13 Antony J. Puddephatt
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The Self from a Radical Interactionist's Perspective: Its Basic Components, Phylogenesis, and Ontogenesis Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-08-07 Lonnie Athens
The radical interactionist (RI) perspective is based on three root images: (1) collective act, (2) the self, and (3) social habitat. Considerable attention has already been devoted to all these root images, except for the self, which is still in need of exposition. During this exposition of the self, its basic operating components are not only explained, but also contrasted with those examined from
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Task‐Designated Identities in Danish Homeless Shelters Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-08-05 Amir B. Marvasti, Nanna Mik‐Meyer
This paper is based on an ethnographic study of how domesticity is enacted and adapted at homeless shelters for determining which clients are “service worthy .” The study draws on nineteen placement meetings with homeless men and focuses on institutional mechanisms for encouraging homemaking skills or domesticity among clients. Adapting Robert K. Merton's typology of adaptations to social norms, as
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Situations as Relational Presences Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-08-01 Marie‐Kristin Döbler, Alexander Schmidl
What is a situation? For good reasons, (micro)sociological approaches focus on different aspects, elements, and perspectives. However, the polyphony can be confusing and prevent a fruitful dialog between theories and disciplines. Therefore, we aim to provide an integrative concept: drawing on phenomenological and interactionist understandings of “the situation,” we conclude that what is crucial are
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Frame Analysis: Erving Goffman and the Sociocognitive Organization of Experience Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-08-01 Eviatar Zerubavel
This paper revisits Erving Goffman's Frame Analysis fifty years after its publication. The paper first situates this book within the context of its intellectual precursors, namely Georg Simmel's 1917 essay “Sociability,” Alfred Schutz's 1945 article “On Multiple Realities,” and Gregory Bateson's 1955 paper “A Theory of Play and Fantasy.” It then examines the book's three main themes, namely framing
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The “Actual Site” of Robots in Care Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-07-27 Andreas Bischof
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Contemplating Phenomenology, Yoga, and the Embodied Sharing of Meaning Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-07-27 Jacqueline Low
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Dialogues of Self and Identity: Foundations for Collection Action Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-07-26 Leonard A. Steverson
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Anonymity, Deception, and Power Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-07-26 Daniel R. Morrison
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Two Approaches to the Study of Music and Meaning in Everyday Life Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-07-12 J. Patrick Williams
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Stories behind Shopping: The Social Dynamics of Multimodal Shopping Interactions Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-06-26 Jiannan Song, Zikang Song
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The Frames of Group Culture: Moments and Their Teams Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-06-20 Gary Alan Fine
Erving Goffman's most profound and theoretically dense work, Frame Analysis, first published in 1974, is now fifty years old: an iconic linkage of the micro and macro‐level. In this reassessment after half a century, I connect Goffman's phenomenological analysis with the meso‐level study of groups and meaning within tiny publics. Frames are inevitably connected with local cultures. In making this claim
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Navigating Ideologies: Mapping Their Imperfect Contours with Fair‐Mindedness Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-05-27 Terry S. H. Au‐Yeung
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Parental Defenses in Interactions with the Police Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-05-27 Liridona Gashi
Decades of stigma research has shown that people draw on different coping strategies to manage stigma in their daily lives. Yet, scholar have paid less attention to how people deal with and manage feelings of stigma as they arise in ongoing interactions. Drawing on observations of police‐parent interactions, in this study I identify four common ways that parents of young offenders respond to police
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Heroes, Victims, and Resisters: Agentic Vulnerability and Techniques of Identity Talk in Digitalized Job Centers Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-05-23 Alexandrina Schmidt, Susie Scott
This article explores vulnerable clients' techniques of identity talk, drawing on interviews with clients in Danish job centers. We combine the theoretical perspective of symbolic interactionism with the sociology of nothing to explore techniques of disidentification from the nonworker identity. The study demonstrates how the actors perform agentic vulnerability to resolve their identity dilemmas.
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“Lace up Your Boots and Do Something:” A Symbolic‐Interactionist Analysis of Girls and Young Women Equestrian Athletes' Resilience Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-05-17 Laura Sanchez
This analysis illuminates how girls and young women dedicated to horse sports craft a resilient identity that they take to their wider lives. The constitutive features of their horse person identity are their willingness to love, care, and learn about horses combined with their embodied close relationships with specific horses. This horse person identity orients them toward a resilient mindset marked
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“It Was Really Sick:” Managing Moral Evaluations during Personality Disorder Interviews Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-05-10 Maarit Lehtinen
Moral aspects are closely related to psychiatric assessment. Personality disorders, especially, form a morally loaded category, as the diagnostic process involves questioning behaviors that go against social norms. Consequently, being interviewed about these matters may be face‐threatening for the patients. However, the study of the role of morality in psychiatric face‐to‐face interactions has been
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Damaged Goods: Victimhood‐Survivorship and the Social Marking of Identity Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-05-10 Gabrielle LaFleur
This article offers a cultural cognitive theory of sexual violence: a Zerubavelian reading of its classificatory, attentional, perceptual, semiotic, mnemonic, and temporal dimensions. It maps the asymmetric syntactic contrasts between the cultural trifecta of “Victim‐Survivors,” “Victimizers,” and the hitherto unnamed, taken‐for‐granted “Unvictims,” arguing that those who experience sexual violence
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The Human Spectrum: A Critique of “Neurodiversity” Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-04-25 Douglas W. Maynard
This paper represents a sociological approach to autism spectrum disorder that critiques the terms neurodiverse and it obverse, neurotypical, because they promote a cognitive approach that mystifies what is actual and real about human activity in everyday life. It is in dynamic interactional practices rather than putative cognitive states that human diversity is manifest or observable. The empirical
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Music and the Social Construction of Self Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-04-25 J. E. Sumerau, Lain A. B. Mathers
Sociologists have demonstrated that people use music to construct meaning in numerous specific contexts, groups, and subcultures. This article expands such work by examining how people draw on music to construct identities in daily life beyond any specific setting. Drawing on four years of participant observation and twenty‐five in‐depth interviews, findings demonstrate three mechanisms of identity‐work
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Contemporary Japanese Women Migration to the United States: Shin Issei Community Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-04-23 Shuvechha Ghimire
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Kinship Health Relationships: Reconfiguring the “Good Death” in Mixed Species Families Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-04-22 Vanessa Ashall, Lindsay Hamilton, Miriam Johnson, Joanna Latimer
Through an innovative interspecies analysis, this article explores narratives surrounding the medical treatment of humans and pet animals at the end of life among U.K. veterinary surgeons, medical practitioners, and members of the public. Contrasting the care options open to pet owners with those available to human patients, and through a thematic focus on treatments and medicines, euthanasia, and
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Making Race Visible Through Cosmetic Surgery Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-04-16 Jiayi Tian
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Theme‐Driven Social Analysis: Three Approaches Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-04-08 Thomas DeGloma
In this article, I present three strategies for building cultural and historical analyses that are driven by broadly relevant social themes rather than particular cases. Each of these strategies represents a different way to approach “concept‐driven sociology,” focusing the researcher on robust and deep‐seated social and cultural forces that underly and shape various actions, events, and experiences
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When Less Is More: The Semiotic Privilege of Status Downplay Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-04-05 Hamutal Jaffe‐Dax
Why do affluent people drive used cars, elite chefs praise basic ingredients, and upper‐middle couples arrange backyard weddings? What makes senior professors feel comfortable dressing down and allows men to bring their kids into the office? This article takes a formal sociological approach to explore the cultural phenomenon of “Status Downplay”—a paradoxical type of status display, where more social
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Drowning in Debt? Exploring the Intersection of Flood Insurance and Social Inequality Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-04-02 Ananya Kaushal
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The Social Logic of Invasion Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-04-02 Stephanie Peña‐Alves
In this article, I theorize invasion as a sociocognitive phenomenon grounded in conceptual relations between the social statuses of “in” and “out.” Pulling invasion out of its ordinary and historically physical context, I explore how people share similar ways of envisioning invasions across a wide variety of domains in social life. To demonstrate this, I employ the qualitative concept‐driven comparative
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The Use of Dress to Navigate Pregnancy and Postpartum in Ghana Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-04-02 Elizabeth Yemorkor Odoi, Day K. M. Wong
The transition to motherhood often involves navigating multiple, often conflicting, identities, which calls for negotiations across various aspects of the self and identity. Apart from collective body management practices in Ghana, different ideals of maternal dress and appearance coexist in the context of globalization. Drawing insight from Goffman's dramaturgical theory, this study explores the role
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Mononormativity: The Social Elevation of the Singular Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-03-25 Armani Beck
The elevation of one-ness and the singular is a social pattern that can be identified across domains and contexts. I call this phenomenon mononormativity and define it as the normativity of “one-ness” and “singularity” in contemporary U.S. society. Social pattern analysis is used to demonstrate how conventions of social marking can reveal previously unexplored patterns across seemingly unrelated institutions
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Banishment, Grounding, and Excommunication: A Typology of Punitive Isolation Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-03-24 Juliana de Oliveira Horst
This article examines the formal similarities between cases such as imprisonment, banishment from social media, school detention, and immigrant deportation. The two main formal properties underlying all these cases are isolation and punishment, hence the social pattern under investigation: punitive isolation. By engaging with formal and concept-driven theoretical and methodological approaches, I outline
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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 1.5) 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 1.5) 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 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-29 Andrea Laurent‐Simpson
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On Doing Concept‐Driven Sociology Symbolic Interaction (IF 1.5) 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 1.5) 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 1.5) 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 1.5) 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 1.5) 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 1.5) 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 1.5) 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 1.5) 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 1.5) 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 1.5) 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 1.5) 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 1.5) 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 1.5) 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 1.5) 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 1.5) 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 1.5) 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 1.5) 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 1.5) 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 1.5) 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 1.5) 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 1.5) 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 1.5) 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