Glossary Account-able Ad hocing: Arche-writing Black nihilism:

Transcription

1 Glossary Account-able: Account-able (accounts, accounting) is a theoretical idea in ethnomethodology. The term implies that the basic requirement of all social settings is that they be recognizable or accountable as whatever social setting they are supposed to be. Members visibly and knowingly work at making their scenes accountable; this work, in turn, organizes the situation and renders it meaningful and real. Ad hocing: Ad hocing is a theoretical concept from ethnomethodology that refers to the methods people use to sustain conversations and a shared sense of social meaning, order, and reality. Ad hocing methods tend to be ways of glossing over possible or actual disruptions in an interaction. They include the et cetera principle, waiting for clarification, and letting issues pass unnoticed. Arche-writing: Arche-writing is a theoretical idea from Jacques Derrida s poststructuralist theory of the text. Derrida begins with the assumption that the signs (or words) of a text only refer to other signs. Writing, then, such as the text on this page, doesn t refer to anything objective or even to language; this text refers only to itself. Thus, writing and text cannot be an expression of the underlying structure of language, let alone an expression of some objective reality. Further, all writing is based on arche-writing, the original breach that language creates between the physical world and its representation. Writing text thus denies presence: events, objects, and persons are not present in text. See also poststructuralism, différance, and deconstruction. Black nihilism: Black nihilism is a theoretical concept from the work of Cornel West. Nihilism in general refers to the idea that human life and existence are meaningless and useless. West uses the idea to describe the African American experience as the result of market saturation. Up until the 1950s, blacks were not considered a viable or large market for capitalism. Since the era of civil rights, however, African Americans have been increasingly targeted: blacks have been inundated with new commodities and enticed by values of consumerism. Consumerism along with upward mobility for some blacks has weakened the civic and religious community base that has traditionally been the source of strength and validation for blacks living under American Apartheid. For West, the main problem is that true equality and justice still do not exist for African Americans: the black life is still one of oppression, yet it is experienced under the shroud of consumerism and the belief that owning more and more commodities is the source of happiness. The loss of community coupled with consumerism and continued oppression has contributed to a growing sense of meaninglessness and loss of purpose for African Americans.

2 GLOSSARY 2 Breaching demonstrations: Breaching demonstrations or experiments are specific practices that ethnomethodologists use to disrupt the gloss (see ad hocing) that is placed over normal encounters. The purpose of such demonstrations is to bring to light the moment by moment achievement of social order that exists solely in the situational work of members. Civil society: Civil society is a concept from Jürgen Habermas critical theory. Civil society is a social network of voluntary associations, organizations (especially mass media), and social movements; its purpose is to inform and actualize the public sphere. To function properly, the civil society must be free from control by the state, economy, and religion; and it must exist within a liberal culture that values equality and freedom. Colonization of the lifeworld: Colonization of the lifeworld is a theoretical concept used by Jürgen Habermas to describe the process through which the everyday life of people is taken over by economic and political structures. By definition the lifeworld is the primary place of intimate communication and social connections. These functions of the lifeworld are overshadowed by the values of money and power that come from the economic and political realms, which in turn reduce true communication and sociability. Lifeworld colonization tends to increase as social structures become more complex and bureaucratized and when the state creates a climate of entitlement. Constructivist structuralism: Constructivist structuralism is Pierre Bourdieu s theoretical perspective. It s a way of seeing the social world that does away with dualisms, such as object/subject, and structure/agent. Bourdieu sees a dialectical tension between constructive and structuring social elements. The dialectic indicates that the elements are in tension (structuring and constructing) one with another and that the outcome includes both but is different than either. See habitus. Consumer society: Consumer society is a theoretical idea from the work of Jean Baudrillard. Goods and services have always been consumed; it s a basic fact of economic existence. However, in postmodernity consumption itself drives the economy rather than basic needs and production. Pure consumption has no natural limits that is, consumption for consumption s sake cannot be satisfied and produces a never-ending demand for new and different commodities. Further, consumption becomes a primary, if not the primary, way people define themselves and experience life Critical theory: Critical theory is a theoretical, philosophical perspective that refers to schools of thought in literary criticism and social theory. In social theory, this critical standpoint began with the Frankfurt School (Frankfurt Institute for Social Research). Max Horkheimer, director of the institute from 1930 to 1958, was the first to coin the term. Generally speaking, critical theory in the social disciplines assumes that all knowledge that is not critically and reflexively assessed is based in material relations of power. The purpose and outcome of this kind of knowledge whether produced in some form of science, politics, or popular culture is always ideological: it produces false consciousness and oppression. Critical theory, on the other hand, intends to be critical and reflexive and is aimed at uncovering the political underpinnings of taken-for-granted, hegemonic culture and how it is used to suppress other ways of knowing and oppress various class and status groups (such as race, gender, and sexual preference). True critical theory has the additional quality of resulting in emancipatory practices or praxis.

3 GLOSSARY 3 Cultural capital: Cultural capital is a theoretical concept used in Randall Collins theory of interaction ritual chains and Pierre Bourdieu s theory of class replication. For Collins, cultural capital is defined as the amount of cultural goods such as knowledge and symbols that a person has at his or her disposal to engage others in interaction rituals. The more cultural capital is held in common, the more likely people are to interact with one another. But because it is a capital, people are also looking for a return on their investment they hope to take more culture away than what they brought in to the interaction. Collins conceptualizes three types of cultural capital: generalized (group specific), particularized (specific to relationships between individuals), and reputational (what is known about the individual). For Bourdieu, there are three kinds of cultural capital: objective (material goods that vary with class), institutionalized (official recognition of knowledge and skills), and embodied (the result of class-based socialization (habitus). Generally, the concept refers to the social skills, linguistic styles, and tastes that one accrues through education and distance from necessity (a measure of how far removed someone is from basic sustenance living). As the levels of education and distance from necessity increase, language, taste, and social skills tend to become more complex and abstract. Culture: The concept of culture is a theoretical term that describes those elements of human society that carry meaning across generations. As such, culture is a principal method through which human society survives. Sociologists are also interested in the relationship between structure and culture. Though always together empirically, analytically separating culture and structure is important. As Max Weber (1948) notes, Yet very frequently the world-images that have been created by ideas have, like switchmen, determined the tracks along which action has been pushed by the dynamic of interest (p. 280). Deconstruction: Deconstruction is a theoretical method of inquiry most closely associated with poststructuralism. The basic assumption in deconstruction is that a complete and coherent reading of text (any cultural expression) is impossible. It is further assumed that the authors of texts are themselves less responsible for the content than are discourse and episteme. A deconstruction of a text, then, aims to expose the effects of discourse on cultural expressions: the intrinsic contradictions, assumptions, and deferred or suppressed knowledge that a text implies but never states. See poststructuralism, différance, arche-writing, queer theory. Dialectic: Dialectic is a theoretical concept that describes the intrinsic dynamic relations within a phenomenon, such as the economy. The term is generally, though not exclusively, used in conflict or critical perspectives. The idea of dialecticism came to sociology through Karl Marx; and Marx, for his part, got the idea from the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Hegel. A dialectic contains different elements that are naturally antagonistic or in tension to one another this antagonism is what energizes and brings change. Dialectics are cyclical in nature, with each new cycle bringing a different and generally unpredictable resolve. The resolve, or new set of social relations, contains its own antagonistic elements and the cycle continues. Différance: Différance is a theoretical idea from Jacques Derrida s theory of the text. Derrida s theory is based on a rejection of representation. Representation is the common assumption of language: the belief that words and their written or spoken expression refer to and truly represent physical objects, events, or other objective phenomena. Derrida

4 GLOSSARY 4 argues that rather than representing reality, signs and texts refer only to other signs and texts and thus constitute reality. Meaning, then, rather than being a function representation, is produced through differences that are made between and among signs. By using the French term différance, Derrida is calling attention to the primacy of writing over speech, especially arche-writing, the original use of language that separated humanity from the physical world. Language created the difference that exists between human experience and direct, objective, sensual experience; and difference is what constitutes meaning within a text. Note that this implies that there are no positive terms, no terms that directly assert a substance or universal. For example, the terms male and female define one another through difference. Différance also implies that meaning is always deferred, not seen in the sign itself but rather hoped for in the context or interpretation of the text. However, since contexts and interpretations are themselves texts, deference is endless and never arrives at a real or true interpretation of meaning or text. Différance further implies that there is no presence in text: everything is defined in terms of difference and absence. Thus it is absence that gives the illusion of presence. See also arche-writing and deconstruction. Discourse: Discourse is a theoretical concept that is widely used but is most specifically associated with the work of Michel Foucault. A discourse is an institutionalized way of thinking and speaking. It sets the limits of what can be spoken and, more importantly, how something may be spoken of. In setting these limites, discourses deliniate the actors of a field, their relationships one to another, and their subjectivities. Discourses are thus an exercise of power. Discursive consciousness: Discursive consciousness is a theoretical concept used to understand the hierarchy of the agent (different levels of awareness and thus action) in Anthony Giddens theory. Discursive consciousness refers specifically to the ability to give verbal accounts or rationalizations of action. It s what we are able to say about the social situation. Discursive consciousness is the awareness of social situations in verbal from. See practical consciousness. Disembedding mechanisms: The idea of disembedding mechanisms is a theoretical concept from Anthony Giddens theory of modernity. Disembedding speaks of processes that lift social relations and interactions out from local contexts, which has implications for time-space distanciation and ontological security. There are two types of mechanisms: symbolic tokens and expert systems. See time-space distanciation, ontological security. Documentary method: Documentary method is a theoretical term from ethnomethodology. The documentary method is the activity through which a link is created between an event or object and an assumed meaning structure. It is more than interpretation. Documentary method refers to the actual work that people perform in a social situation that links an event to its interpretation in such a way as to authenticate the correspondence. Dramaturgy: Dramaturgy is a theoretical perspective that is most closely associated with the work of Erving Goffman. Dramaturgy uses the analogy of the stage to analyze and understand what people do in social encounters. People are conceived of as actors, sometimes working as teams, who work to convey specific self-impressions to an audience (others present). This work is referred to as impression management. Emphasis is placed

5 GLOSSARY 5 on the continual production of a social self, which places moral imperatives on the interaction order. Emergent/emergence: Emergence is a theoretical idea used to understand meaning and interaction in symbolic interactionism. To emerge means to rise from or come out into view, like steam from boiling water. Emergent meaning (or self), then, implies that meaning is not intrinsic to any sign or object. Meaning, rather, is a function of social interaction: the meaning of a sign, symbol, non-verbal cue, social object, and so on comes out of (emerges from) social interaction. In this perspective, meaning is thus a very supple thing and is controlled by people in face-to-face interactions not social structure. See also interaction. Emotional energy: Emotional energy is a theoretical idea that originated with Emile Durkheim and is used by Randall Collins in his theory of interaction rituals. It is defined as the level of motivational energy an individual feels after leaving an interaction. Emotional energy is specifically linked to the level of collective emotion formed in a ritual, and it predicts the likelihood of further ritual performance and the individual s initial involvement within the ritual. Endogenous reflexivity: Reflexivity is a theoretical term used in a number of contemporary approaches. Something is reflexive if it turns back on or produces itself. Endogenous (from the inside) reflexivity is a concept used in ethnomethodology to capture the idea that social worlds exist as member produced self-contained orders. Engenderment: Engenderment is a theoretical term used in Janet Chafetz s theory of gender stratification stability. Her concern in the theory is to explain how gender inequality is patterned and thus structured. Engenderment captures the notion that while gender is socially constructed, it is also internalized. Through socialization, social learning, and psychodynamic processes women and men become gendered, which in turn influence the kinds of behaviors they display and decisions they make. Episteme: Episteme is a theoretical concept from Michel Foucault s theory of knowledge and power. Episteme refers to the fundamental notions of truth and validity that underlie knowledge. It s the hidden order of knowledge. Epistemes organize and are a necessary precondition for thought; epistemes set the boundaries of what is possible and knowable. One important implication of this concept is that an episteme will maintain the order produced by a knowledge system even in the face of contradictory events or findings. Epistemes are historically specific and change through rupture rather than linear progress. Ethnomethodology: Ethnomethodology is a theoretical perspective in sociology that began with the work of Harold Garfinkel. Ethnomethodology is the study of the everyday methods that ordinary people use to make sense of, organize, and act in the situations in which they find themselves. The central question of the perspective is that of social order. Some sociological perspectives explain social order by referring to cultural and social structures that impinge on the situation. Ethnomethodology, on the other hand, explains social order as a local achievement. As people in the situation act in such a way as to give to themselves and observers the impression of such-and-such a social order, they in fact produce such an organization. In other words, the main idea of ethnomethodology is that the methods people use to organize a situation are identical to the methods used to render the situation accountable.

6 GLOSSARY 6 Externalization: Externalization is a theoretical process in Berger and Luckmann s theory of reality construction. According to Berger and Luckmann, humans are born instinctually underdeveloped and without natural connections to a specific environment. This state forces humans to create a viable environment through culture. This created world is distinctly human and is thus the effect of humans externalizing their nature. Facticity: Facticity is a theoretical concept found in a number of different social constructivist approaches. Facticity refers to the quality of being a fact. Implicit in this concept is the idea that facts are produced; they don t intrinsically exist as facts. Events, objects, and phenomena in general become facts under certain knowledge systems. Fault line: Fault line is a theoretical concept specific to Dorothy Smith s feminist theory. Smith argues that a gap exists between official knowledge especially knowledge generated through the social sciences and the experience of women. This fault line is particularly important for understanding how men are able to not see the differences between objective, public knowledge and the reality of day-to-day existence: women traditionally negotiate or obscure the disjunction for men through their caring for the daily administration of the household, including meeting the sustenance and comfort needs of both men and children. Field: The field is a theoretical concept from Pierre Bourdieu s constructivist structuralism approach. The concept functions to orient the researcher to an arena of study. Field denotes a set of objective positions and relations that are tied together by the rules of the game and by the distribution of four fundamental powers or capitals: economic, cultural (informal social skills, habits, linguistic styles, and tastes), social (networks), and symbolic (the use of symbols to recognize and thus legitimate the other powers). People and positions are hierarchically distributed in the field through the overall volume of capital they possess. Symbolic and cultural capitals are specifically important: cultural capital is important in forming habitus and thus the replication of the field, and symbolic capital is important because it gives legitimacy and meaning to the empirical field. See habitus, symbolic capital, cultural capital. Frames: The idea of frames is a theoretical concept in Goffman s analysis of how people experience reality. The analogy is to a film strip and its frames or to the frame of a picture on the wall. In both cases the frame delineates certain features as important by excluding all others. Frames, then, tell people what to pay attention to and thus how to organize their subjective involvement. There are two primary frames: natural and social. These are perceived as solid and factual. These frames may be keyed and thus given different meanings. Keying generally makes a primary frame seem less real. The five keys are makebelieve, contests, ceremonies, technical redoings, and regroupings. Frankfurt School: The Frankfurt School is both an actual school and school of thought (its most usual connotation today). The school began in Frankfurt, Germany in the 1920s and has included such thinkers as Theodore Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, Walter Benjamin, Herbert Marcuse, Eric Fromm, and, most recently, Jürgen Habermas. In general the founding members sought to update Karl Marx s theory of material consciousness by returning to Marx s Hegelian roots and synthesizing elements from Max Weber and Sigmund Freud. Of Marx s work, the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 and The German Ideology were key texts. See critical theory.

7 GLOSSARY 7 Free-floating signifiers: The idea of free-floating signifiers comes from the postmodern writings of Fredric Jameson. In traditional and modern societies, signifiers, or signs, are set and understood within a social or linguistic structure, what is sometimes referred to as a signification chain. In postmodernity, however, the chain or context of signs has been disrupted by machines of reproduction, or mass media. This break in the signification chain indicates that each sign stands alone, or in relatively loose association with fragmented groups of other signs. Signs, then, become free-floating signifiers. See simulacrum. Front: The theoretical idea of a front comes from Erving Goffman s dramaturgy. Front refers to the totality of identity cues offered by an individual in a social encounter. These cues come from the setting (see Setting), manner, and appearance. Functionalism: Functionalism is a theoretical perspective that began with the work of Herbert Spencer in the 19 th century and was systematized by Talcott Parsons in the 20 th. Functionalism is built around the organismic analogy and has at least five defining features: concern for requisite needs, structural differentiation, specialization, integration, and system equilibrium. In contemporary theory, neo-functionalism (as espoused by Jeffrey C. Alexander) reconceptualizes some of these issues and is concerned with the integrity and interrelationship of social structures, social change as generated structural differentiation and by the tension produced by the relationships among various social structures, and equilibrium as simply a reference point for studying an empirical system. The system-theory of Niklas Luhmann is often seen as a type of neo-functionalism; but it has a number of distinct points: the primary issue is the relationship between the system as a whole and its environment and an emphasis on system characteristics such as feedforward and feed-back processes (which in turn places importance on process rather than structure). Generalized other: The generalized other is a theoretical concept used in symbolic interactionism that refers to sets of perspectives and attitudes indicative of a specific group or social type with which the individual can role-take. In the formation of the self, the generalized other represents the last stage in which the child can place herself in a collective role from which to view her own behaviors. It is the time when the self is fully formed as the person takes all of society inside. Governmentality: Governmentality is a theoretical term from Michel Foucault s theory of knowledge and power. The term refers to a specific kind of institutionalized power. In Foucault s scheme, modernity is unique because of the manner through which states control populations. Generally speaking, in previous ages power and control were exercised upon the individual from without. Governments would actively and directly control the person, when domination was necessary or desired. In contrast, modern states exercise power from within the individual. Governmentality, then, captures the process through which the person participates in his or her own domination control is exercised within the person by the person. See panopticon, discourse, and power. Habitus: A central theoretical term from Pierre Bourdieu s theory of class replication. Habitus refers to the cultural capital an individual possesses as a result of his or her class position. Habitus is embodied; that is, it works through the body at a non-conscious level. Cultural capital and thus class position are expressed unthinkingly. On the one hand, this embodied expression structures class; on the other hand, habitus works creatively as it is

8 GLOSSARY 8 possible to make intuitive leaps. Habitus varies by cultural capital and is expressed in linguistic markets. See constructivist structuralism. Hegemonic norm of heterosexuality: The hegemonic norm of heterosexuality is a theoretical idea from Judith Butler s feminist theory. The idea simply says that heterosexuality exclusive attraction to members of the opposite sex is governed by social norms. The power of this term in Butler s hands is that she sees that this norm truly is about sex and not just gender. In other words, Butler is arguing that normative scripts of sexuality are materialized in the body. Thus, being heterosexual is the result of social, normative pressures that produce heterosexual bodies. Hyperreality: Hyperreality is a theoretical concept from the work of Jean Baudrillard and refers to the preference in postmodern societies for simulated experiences rather than real ones. In Baudrillard s scheme, the real has been stripped of all meaning, authenticity, and subjective experience through the proliferation of simulacrum. People thus seek emotional experiences in images of reality that have been exaggerated to the grotesque and fantastic (breast implants and video games are good examples). See simulacrum. Ideal speech communities: The concept of ideal speech communities comes from the work of Jürgen Habermas. Ideal speech refers to communicative acts or interactions where every member is granted full participation and is free from any type of coercion. Each member is responsible to express their opinions, keeping their speech free from ideology and objective standings (such as educational credentials). The goal of ideal speech is consensus. Habermas argues that reasoned consensus and thus emancipation is possible because of the inherent assumptions of communication. The act of communication assumes that communication, intersubjectivity, and validity are all possible. The latter implies the possibility of universal norms or morals; and the fact that validity claims can be criticized implies that they are in some sense active and accountable to reason. Incorrigible assumptions: The theoretical idea of incorrigible assumptions comes from ethnomethodology and refers to the assumptions upon which every version of human reality is based. These assumptions cannot be questioned because to do so would erode the foundation of reality. Thus, the assumptions are protected through secondary elaborations of belief. Indexical expressions: The idea of indexical expressions comes from ethnomethodology and conceptualizes the notion that the meaning of all conversation is dependent upon a context that is assumed to be shared by all interactants. Talk, then, indexes contexts in order to be sensible and taken-for-granted. Institutional ethnography: Institutional ethnography is a methodological approach developed by Dorothy Smith. Its focus is to understand how everyday experience is socially organized through authoritative texts. Texts, such as written documentation or research articles, are generated through professional practices and governmental policy making. These texts then come to organize local activities. The texts further provide a scheme for people within the activities to assess and experience themselves as members of the social situation. Institutional ethnography thus provides a way of mapping the social relations of power that govern daily life, particularly that of women or other minorities.

9 GLOSSARY 9 Institutionalization: Institutionalization is a theoretical process through which social and cultural elements become patterned. In Berger and Luckmann s theory, institutionalization is the result of habitualized behaviors and reciprocal typifications. Intelligibility: Intelligibility is a theoretical concept most closely associated with the feminist work of Judith Butler. The word itself simply means that something is understandable. However, the concept takes on social and political significance because intelligibility is based on commonly accepted ways of knowing and knowledge. Rather than pure information, knowledge here is seen as a product of institutional practices and relations of power. Intelligibility, then, sets the limits for what a person may feel, think, and be, these parameters being set by hegemonic (or authoritative) culture and institutionalized power. See hegemonic norm of heterosexuality. Interaction: Interaction is a central theoretical idea in symbolic interactionism. Interaction is the intertwining of individual human actions. In symbolic interaction, the interaction is the true acting unit in society. According to this view, interaction is not simply the means of expressing social structure or the individual s personality traits; rather, the interaction is the premier social domain and is thus the chief factor through which social structures and individual personalities are created and sustained. Interaction occurs through a three-part process through which meaning, society, and self emerge: the presentation of a cue, the initial response to the cue, and the response to the response. However, the end point of the process generally becomes itself an initial cue for further interaction, staring the process over again. Joint action: Joint action is a theoretical term from Blumer s symbolic interactionism that describes the process through which various individual and discrete actions and interactions are brought together to form a meaningful whole. This joining is accomplished symbolically by both individuals and groups and constitutes a significant portion of what is meant by society. The insight of this concept is that at every point of interaction or joint action there is uncertainty. The implication is that society is emergent. Legitimation: Legitimation is a theoretical concept that describes the effects that specific stories, histories, and myths have in granting ethical, moral, or legal status or authorization to social power and relations. Legitimation is particularly important in the social construction of reality. According to Berger and Luckmann s theory, there are three levels of legitimation (self-evident, theoretical, and symbolic universes) each more powerful than the previous. Life politics: Life politics is a theoretical idea from Anthony Giddens theory of modernity. It is an outgrowth of emancipatory politics. Emancipatory politics is concerned with liberating individuals and groups from the constraints that adversely affect their lives people are thus liberated to make choices. Life politics is the politics of choice and lifestyle; concerned with issues that flow from the practices of selfactualization within the dialectic of the local/global, where self realization affects global strategies. Life politics is dependent upon the individual creating and maintaining inner authenticity.

10 GLOSSARY 10 Lifeworld: The lifeworld is a theoretical concept that came into sociology through the work of Alfred Schutz. The lifeworld refers to the world as it is experienced immediately by each person. It is a cultural world filled with meaning and is made up of the sets of assumptions, beliefs, and meanings against which an individual judges and interprets everyday experiences. See colonization of the lifeworld. Linguistic market: Linguistic market is a theoretical concept from Pierre Bourdieu s theory of class replication. The idea emphasizes the importance of language and social skills in reproducing class. Every time a person speaks with another there is a linguistic market, in which each person has different skill levels and knowledge. These differing levels lead to distinct rewards in the market that in turn announce one s class position. The power of the market is that people tend to sanction themselves because they intuitively understand how their culture and language skills will play out in any given market. See symbolic violence, habitus, and cultural capital. Materialization: Materialization is a theoretical idea used in Judith Butler s theory of sex and gender. The term refers to the process through which hegemonic norms of sex and sexuality are scripted within the body. With materiality, Butler moves beyond the idea that gender is a social construction that is built on distinct male and female bodies. That approach ultimately restricts the possibilities of change and choice. In Butler s scheme, the sexed body itself is socially constructed. When sex is materialized, it produces a feminism that opens up difference, subversion, choice, and change. See performity and the hegemonic norm of heterosexuality. Mind: The mind is a theoretical concept used in symbolic interactionism to refer to the internal dialog experienced by an individual. According to symbolic interactionists, the mind is behavior, rather than an entity. The mind has the ability to use symbols to denote objects; to use symbols as its own stimulus (it can talk to itself); to read and interpret another's gestures and use them as further stimuli; to suspend response (not act out of impulse); to imaginatively rehearse one s own behaviors before actually behaving. The mind is a social necessity. Modalities of structuration: Modalities of structuration is a concept used in Anthony Giddens structuration. Modalities of structuration are the paths through which structure is expressed in social encounters. There are three modalities (interpretive schemes, facilities, and norms) that are linked on the one hand to structures (signification, domination, and legitimation) and on the other to social practices (communication, power, and sanctions). These modalities are socially and culturally specific. See structuration theory. Objectivation: Objectivation is a theoretical concept in Berger and Luckmann s theory of reality construction. It describes the processes through which an arbitrary, contingent, subjective experience takes on the appearance of an external inevitability cultural becomes factual. Objectivation occurs through institutionalization, historicity, legitimation, and language. Ontological security/insecurity: Ontological security is a theoretical concept from Anthony Giddens structuration theory. Ontology refers to the way things exist and specifically implies that human existence is different than all other forms of existence because of meaning. Meaning is not a necessary or intrinsic feature of any event or object.

11 GLOSSARY 11 This characteristic of meaning implies that human reality is unstable. This intrinsic instability creates an unconscious need for ontological security a sense of trust in the taken-for-grantedness of the human world. This need motivates humans to routinize and regionalize their practices. See routinization, regionalization. Panopticon: Panopticon is a theoretical concept from Michel Foucault s theory of knowledge and power. The panopticon was an architectural design for a prison that allowed for the unobserved observation of prisoners. The idea behind the panopticon is that if prisoners thought they were being watched, even if they weren t, the prisoners themselves would exercise control over their own behaviors. Foucault sees this physical prison as a metaphor for the way control and power is exercised in modernity. He specifically has in mind the self-administered control that comes through the knowledge produced by the social and behavioral sciences as well as medical science. See discourse, governmentality, and power. Performity: Performity is a theoretical concept from Judith Butler s feminist theory. Performity refers to performances, practices, or actions that bring something into existence. An example of performity is the moment in an academic graduation when the qualifications for graduation are announced fulfilled and then accepted by the presiding officer. It is at that precise moment that the student graduates the fact came into existence through performity. The important performity for Butler occurs through the gendered and sexed practices that cite the hegemonic norm of heterosexuality. See hegemonic norm of heterosexuality. Phenomenology: Phenomenology is a school of philosophy developed by Edmund Husserl that argues that consciousness is the only experience or phenomenon of which humans can be certain. It seeks, then, to discover the natural and primary processes of consciousness apart from the influence of culture or society. Husserl hoped to create a descriptive account of the essential structures of the directly given; that is, the immediate experience of the world apart from preexisting values or beliefs. Social phenomenology, on the other hand, argues that nothing is directly given to humans; we experience everything through stocks of language, typifications, and so on. Social phenomenology, then, seeks to explain the phenomena of the social world as they are presented to us. This approach is distinct from most sociology in that phenomenologists reduce phenomena to the simplest terms possible. For example, a structural sociologist will study racial inequality and its effects. Race is simply a given in this kind of approach. A phenomenological approach will take race itself as the most basic problem to explain: how is it that race can be experienced as a given, as something that can be taken-forgranted, as an intersubjective reality? How does race present itself to us in just such a way as to appear real, taken-for-granted, and intersubjective? Population structures: For Peter Blau, population structures are composed of the distribution of a population among various social positions. These positions are social categories that are hierarchically arranged, with some being more valued than others (such as race and gender). The properties of population structure do not refer to the contents or attributes of social institutions or organizations, but, rather, to the distributions of elements in structural space.

12 GLOSSARY 12 Postdemocratic Age: This idea comes from the work of Cornel West. The notion of a postdemocratic age is based on a definition of democracy as a community of involved citizens actively engaged in open and critical dialog, under the condition of the freedom of ideas and information, and oriented toward achieving justice, equity, compassion, and acceptance of diverse others. West argues that the American postdemocratic age has come about principally through the work of the Christian right amplified by the fear generated by 9/11. Three dogmas are associated with this fundamentalist movement, all of which contribute to postdemocracy: free-market fundamentalism, aggressive militarism, and escalating authoritarianism. Poststructuralism: Poststructuralism is a theoretical perspective. However, poststructuralism doesn t refer to a clear body of knowledge that is universally accepted by its adherents. It is, rather, a loose amalgamation of ideas that in general define an approach. Overall, poststructuralism is defined in opposition to structuralism, an attempt to discover and explain the unobserved foundations for empirical phenomena. Implicit within such goals is the belief that a metalanguage (like science or mathematics) can be created that will adequately and objectively express the characteristics of such a structure. It is the criticism of this belief that forms the core of poststructuralism. Poststructuralism assumes that all languages are based on values, most of which are political in nature. Thus, a pure science of any social structure is impossible. Rather than language being able to represent an independent reality, language is inherently self-referential, creating a world of oppressive power relations. Additionally, poststructuralism is characterized by several denials: poststructuralism rejects the belief in essentializing ideas that conceptualize the social world or a portion of it as a universal totality rather, the social world is fragmented and historically specific (general theories are thus impossible and oppressive); poststructuralism denies the possibility of knowing an independent or objective reality rather, the human world and knowledge are utterly textual; poststructuralism discards the idea that texts or language have any true meaning rather, texts are built around différance and carry a surplus of meaning (humanity is thus left with nothing but interpretation and interpretations of interpretation); and, poststructuralism rejects the idea of universal human nature developed out of the Enlightenment rather, the meaning of the human subject is historically specific and is an effect of discourse, with the discourses of an age producing the possible bodies and subjectivities of the person. See structuralism, différance, and deconstruction. Power: Power is a theoretical concept found in many social and sociological theories. The short definition of power is the ability to get others to do what you want. Yet, in terms of how it works and where it resides, power is one of our most difficult and controversial terms. For Anthony Giddens, power is part of every interaction and is defined in terms of autonomy and dependence. The greater our level of autonomy and the greater others level of dependence, the greater will be our power in an encounter. Thinking of power in this way makes it an outcome rather than a resource that is possessed. It also makes power part of face-to-face encounters rather than part of an obdurate structure or linked to group politics. In structuration theory, power is one of the results of the use of allocative and authoritative resources. For Peter Blau, power is the result of unequal exchange relations. Power refers to the other individual s or group s ability to recurrently impose its will on self. There are four conditions of power in Blau s exchange scheme: the power of actor A over actor B is contingent upon 1) B having limited needs; 2) B having few or no alternatives; 3) B unable or unwilling to use force; and, 4) B continuing to value the good or service that A controls. Michel Foucault sees power in two ways; both are hidden rather

13 GLOSSARY 13 than overt. Most importantly, power is exercised through knowledge. The knowledge that any person holds at any given time is the result of historically specific institutional arrangements and practices. For Foucault, knowledge isn t simply held it is applied to every aspect of the person s life by the individual. Thus, knowledge exercises control over people s bodies, minds, and subjectivities. The second way Foucault uses the notion of power is in daily encounters with others. In every social encounter people s actions influence other actions; these practices enact the social discourse or knowledge and serve to guide and reinforce one another. Practical consciousness: Practical consciousness is a concept from Anthony Giddens theory and refers to what people know or believe about social situations and practices but can t verbally explain. Practical consciousness is the basis for the routinization of daily life, which, in turn, provides ontological security. One of the important ramifications of the idea of practical consciousness is that it implies that behavior is often times directed by non-conscious intuition and that the reasons given for action (discursive consciousness) can have a separate interactional function. See ontological security and discursive consciousness. Pragmatism: Pragmatism is a school of philosophy that argues that the only values, meanings, and truths that humans hold onto are the ones that have practical benefits. These values, meanings, and truths shift and change in response to different concrete experiences. Pragmatism forms the base for many American social theories, most specifically symbolic interactionism. Public sphere: The public sphere is a theoretical construct from the critical work of Jürgen Habermas. The public sphere is an imaginary community or virtual space where a democratic public gathers for dialog. With the idea of the public sphere Habermas is arguing that true democratic process demands an active, public dialog that takes place outside the influence of government or the economy. To function properly, the public sphere demands unrestricted access to information and equal participation of all members. See civil society. Queer theory: Queer theory is a critical, theoretical perspective as well as a method for unpacking (or deconstructing) the commonly accepted naturalness of sex, sexuality, desire, and gender. As with any deconstruction, the gap between the ideal and its expression is exploited in order to show the inconsistencies and political discourses through which sex, gender, and desire are constructed and made to seem natural and stable. Racial reasoning: Racial reasoning is a theoretical idea from Cornel West s work. Racial reasoning is rooted in a sectarian rather than universal view of equality. Being concerned with equality as a group right rather than a general social issue leads to the kind of thinking that proclaims legitimacy for one particular black experience over another. Reality: Reality, or more specifically, social reality, is a theoretical term that refers to those elements of culture that are external to the individual, the effects of which are unavoidable. For Berger and Luckmann, reality is a dialectical process involving externalization, objectivation, and internalization. See also virtual reality.

14 GLOSSARY 14 Regionalization: Regionalization is a concept used in Anthony Giddens theory of structuration and time-space distanciation. Specifically, interactions in different times and places are linked through dividing space into normal regions, such as a place for sleeping, for eating, for learning, for driving, and so on. Regions vary by form, character, duration, and space. See also routinization. Reified/Reification: Reification is a concept that captures the idea that concepts and ideas may be treated as objectively real things. In social science generally, reification can be seen as a methodological problem because of the tendency to ascribe causation to ideas, as in gender causing inequality. In critical theory, reification is taken further and refers to the process through which human beings become dominated by things and become more thinglike themselves. Rituals: In Randall Collins theory of interaction rituals, rituals are patterned sequences of behavior that tend to recreate high levels of co-presence, bounded interactions, common emotional mood, and common focus of attention. For Collins, rituals not only function to reinvigorate a group s moral and sacred base, as in Durkheim, rituals also are the key social mechanism through which macro-level social phenomena are produced. According to Collins, macro-level phenomena are created through the simple building up of interactions through time and space. Ritual performance provides the links that allow interactions to be built up: emotional energy and cultural capital. Role-taking: Role taking is a theoretical concept in symbolic interactionism that describes the process through which an individual places herself in the role of the other person in order to see herself from that position. Role-taking is the chief mechanism through which the self is produced and interactions are successfully carried out. Routinization: Routinization is a theoretical concept from Anthony Giddens work. It refers to the process through which daily activities become habitual and taken-forgranted. Routinization is the basis of trust in the social world, and, thus, ontological security, and is part of the process of time-space distanciation. See regionalization. Secondary elaborations of belief: Secondary elaborations of belief are prescribed legitimating accounts that explain away any piece of empirical data that contradicts how reality is assumed to function. See incorrigible assumptions. Self: The self is a theoretical idea that describes various features of the individual. According to symbolic interactionist theory, the self is a social object, a perspective, a conversation, and a story. In interactionist theory, the self is seen as arising from diverse role taking experiences. The self is thus a social object in that it is formed through definitions given by others, especially the generalized other, and is a central meaningful feature in interactions. The self is a perspective in the sense that it is the place from which we view our own behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. It is an internal conversation through which we arrive at the meaning and evaluation we will give to our own behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. This conversation is ongoing and produces a story we tell ourselves and others about who we are (the meaning of this particular social object). The self is initially created through successive stages of role-taking and the internalization of language. The self continually emerges, is given meaning, and furnished with stability or flexibility through patterns of interactions with distinct groups and generalized others. See also dramaturgy.