­­­­Kagoshima University Computing & Communications Center

“Publications,” 2003, No. 16^[1]

Special Feature

Introduction of Study Cases

 

“Symbolic Interactionism Notes” Web Release^[2]

 

 

Tsukasa Kuwabara

Faculty of Law, Economics and Humanities

k8716665@kadai.jp

 

I have been studying sociological theory, specifically the theory of symbolic interactionism, since graduate school. I first came into contact with this theory after my admission to the Department of Regional Science of the Faculty of Letters at Kumamoto University in April 1988. There, I switched from the “Folklore Studies Course” to the “Sociology Course” and began studying medical sociology, with a primary focus on the communication and interactions occurring between the medical staff and patients in hospice care. During this research, I studied the theories of sociologists, B. G. Glaser and A. L. Strauss.

In 1993, after I had earned my degree and was auditing courses in the university’s Graduate School of Literature, I learned that Strauss had played a role in developing the theory (both a perspective and a method) called symbolic interactionism. I subsequently made this my specialty, as my interest shifted to the theory itself, drifting away from medical sociology. I have been posting and archiving relevant information on my homepage [http://warp.da.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/1165035/ecowww.leh.kagoshima-u.ac.jp/staff/kuwabara/index.html][3][4] since 2001. Below is a detailed list of items that can be found there.

(1)   “Bibliography of Symbolic Interactionism”

(2)   “Graduation Thesis Abstract”

(3)   “Master’s Thesis”

(4)   “Master’s Thesis Abstract”

(5)   “Doctoral Thesis”

(6)   “Doctoral Thesis Abstract”

(7)   “The First Chicago School of Sociology and Blumer’s Symbolic Interactionism”

(8)   “The Social Nature of the Self”

(9)   “Interaction and Mutual Consent”

 

About (1) “Bibliography of Symbolic Interactionism” [http://megalodon.jp/2016-0609-1313-46/ecowww.leh.kagoshima-u.ac.jp/staff/kuwabara/SI.htm]

Symbolic interactionism (SI) is a sociological and social-psychological perspective established by the American sociologist Herbert George Blumer (1900–1987) in the beginning of the 1960s. It focuses on the social interaction of humans—symbolic interaction in particular—and tries to explain such phenomena from the “actor’s perspective.” The historical origin of SI is normally traced back to the works of George Herbert Mead (1863–1931). Mead published many works in his lifetime, but his impact on SI came mainly from (1) published lecture transcripts and notes taken by his students and (2) the interpretation of Mead’s work by Blumer, who was one of his students. Blumer published many papers in the 1950s and 1960s, systematizing SI. For a period of time, SI was synonymous with Blumer’s work. However, new leaders of SI appeared in the 1970s and 1980s, such as Norman Denzin, Anselm Strauss, Sheldon Stryker, and Gary Fine, which resulted in the theory being explored in new directions, as well in as the development of various criticisms. Furthermore, in the 1980s, Erving Goffman developed the method of dramaturgy. I have tried to assemble as many research papers and bodies of work, both domestic and international, relating to SI as possible. In enumerating the literature, I followed the explanatory notes in Sociology of Social Processes [http://warp.da.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/1195815/ecowww.leh.kagoshima-u.ac.jp/staff/kuwabara/doctor.htm] as a general rule. This bibliography is currently being linked to the sites listed below:

 

1)      “The Research Society of Sociology and Social Science Foundations” http://www.wakhok.ac.jp/~harie/kisokenlist.html[5]

(The Research Society of Sociology and Social Science Foundations is based on the principles of “questioning the foundations” and “ensuring sufficient discussion,” and it is led by Hironao Harie of Wakkanai Hokusei Gakuen University.)

2)      “Sunday Sociology” http://thought.ne.jp/luhmann/list/weblist03.html[6]

(Book guides, analects, translations, etc., relating to the German sociologist N. Luhmann. Created by Taito Sakai.)

3)      “Electronic Bibliography of Sociological Works (Osaka University)” http://risya3.hus.osaka-u.ac.jp/Links/bib.html[7]

(A collection of links to online sociological literary works.)

4)      “Secondary Reference List Regarding Mead (Domestic)” http://isweb43.infoseek.co.jp/school/taka-y02/[8]

(Created by Takanori Yamao, Sakushin Gakuin University.)

5)      “Human Resource Management and Organizational Behavior” http://www.geocities.co.jp/WallStreet/4716/index.html[9]

(“Key Points of Symbolic Interactionism” http://www.geocities.co.jp/WallStreet/4716/symblicinteraction.htm[10])

6)      “Kenichi Wakita’s Homepage” http://www.anna.iwate-pu.ac.jp/~wakita/index.htm

(“Links” http://www.anna.iwate-pu.ac.jp/~wakita/link-2.htm)

 

About (2) “Graduation Thesis Abstract” (Sociology Course, Regional Science Department, Faculty of Letters at Kumamoto University)

[https://web.archive.org/web/20141111040347/http://space.g.,eocities.jp/isssn03890104no54/phd12a.jpg]

The paper attempts to explicate the mechanism by which brain death and organ transplant issues are addressed via William Fielding Ogburn’s theory of cultural lag. When discussing social change, Ogburn argued that the culture changes rather than society, and he categorized culture into material culture, adaptive culture, and psychological culture (the latter two types are collectively referred to as “non-material culture”). According to Ogburn, the speed at which each of these three cultures changes is not the same, resulting in a lag. In other words, whereas material culture changes quickly, adaptive culture lags behind in its speed of changing, and psychological culture lags even further. Ogburn coined the term “cultural lag” for this phenomenon, and the rapid cultural changes occurring in modern society have made it a prominent social issue. The examinations related to this paper (Graduation Thesis, Kumamoto University) clearly show that the brain death and organ transplant issues that have arisen in Japan are results of this cultural lag: material culture = state-of-the-art medical technology, particularly that of respirators, angiorrhaphy, and immunosuppressants; adaptive culture = law, particularly the Organ Transplant Law; psychological culture = Japanese people’s view of life and death, and of how to treat the dead person’s remains. (Economic Society of Kagoshima University, 2001, Journal of Economics and Sociology, Kagoshima University, No. 54: 80[11]–81[12])

 

About (3) “Master’s Thesis” [http://hdl.handle.net/10232/17478]

The entire text of “Rethinking the Relationship between Actors and Society in Herbert Blumer’s Symbolic Interactionism,” submitted to the Faculty of Arts and Letters of the Graduate School of Tohoku University, as the author’s master’s thesis.

 

About (4) “Master’s Thesis Abstract” - Quoted from the periodical Societas (Tohoku University Department of Sociology), 1996, Vol. 15: 72–75 [http://hdl.handle.net/10232/7917]

Herbert George Blumer’s theory of symbolic interactionism proposed relations between human beings and society and between actors and society. These relations were completely antithetical to the relation between human beings and society entailed by the structural-functionalist school of sociology associated with Talcott Parsons. The latter’s position, briefly stated, was that society shaped human beings in a unidirectional fashion. Against such a relation—that is, against the unidirectional formation of human beings by society—Blumer’s symbolic interactionism proposed an inverse theory and was concerned with the formation of society by human beings.

This paper seeks to reconsider the relations between human beings and society and between actors and society outlined according to Blumer’s symbolic interactionism. In particular, based on its firm links with the self-interaction concept, which serves as the cornerstone of Blumer’s theory, it attempts to unravel the reasons for society’s dynamic and processual character within the theoretical context of symbolic interactionism.

The findings of this paper suggest, first of all, that within the theoretical context of Blumer’s symbolic interactionism, the relation between actors and society has been considered to be established through the former’s self-interactions. However, such self-interactions are performed in correspondence with two a priori schemas obtained from actors’ worlds and their constituent objects (i.e., other actors), rather than being freely performed.

Actors define and forge certain relations with the world according to these two schemas. However, the world does not simply acquiesce to these unidirectional acts of definition; it is an empirical world that can resist or ‘talk back’ to such attempts. Moreover, it is by using such resistance or ‘talking back’ as a clue that we may perceive the validity of—and if necessary, modify—our own acts of definition, thereby reconfiguring the existing relations that connect us to the world. Thus, in the context of Blumer’s symbolic interactionism, the relation between the actor and the world is not dictated by a unidirectional act of definition on the actor’s part but can rather be perceived as something that is (re)constructed through the interaction or mutual influence of the actor’s attempts at definition and the world’s ‘talking back’ against these attempts.

Given this understanding, I reconsider Blumer’s theory of joint action and provide an explanation for the society’s dynamic and processual character based on the theory’s firm links with the concept of self-interaction.

In our consideration, multiple actors participating in a social interaction (ego and alter) are also actively engaged in acts of ‘taking account of taking account’ as a particular form of self-interaction; when they thus take action in relation to each other on this basis, in the context of Blumer’s symbolic interactionism, a joint action (i.e., society itself) is considered to be formed. Here, ‘taking account of taking account’ refers to how two actors, by taking account of each other ‘do not merely take account of each other but also take account of each other as entities taking account of each other’. Moreover, as a consequence, another actor’s assumptions about oneself shape one’s own assumptions. Blumer argued that when both parties performed this properly, it leads to the smooth formation of a ‘joint action’.

In such a situation, properly performing ‘taking account of taking account’ leads to the act of common definition between the two actors, thus further enabling the repetition of a stable form of joint action. Furthermore, this common definition can also be perceived in Blumer’s symbolic interactionism as something that can only be sustained through the continued performance of an identical interpretive scheme—in other words, a mutually compatible ‘taking account of taking account’—by participants involved in a social interaction. For such joint action (i.e., society) to be dynamic and processual, the mechanism by which it alters its form must be explicable. In other words, the mechanism by which participants in a social interaction alter their interpretive schemes, or the manner of their ‘taking account of taking account’, must be explained.

In the context of the dyadic model of two actors (alter and ego) who shape a joint action together, each actor will be an object for the other; therefore, each performs a ‘taking account of taking account’ in relation to the other. Furthermore, to say that they are objects for each other also indicates that they are both entities that are interpreted and defined as mutual partners and are simultaneously a part of an empirical world that can resist or talk back against such interpretation or definition. Therefore, if one actor (alter) were to reconfigure an action that is witnessed by the other (ego), it would signify ‘talk back’ for the latter. Moreover, if ego were to seize on this ‘talk back’ and consider it an opportunity to reconfigure that action and if this were then witnessed by alter, it would signify ‘talk back’ for alter. In other words, when ‘talk back’ is oriented toward either, the party against whom it is directed will attempt to reconfigure his or her actions and thus encourage the reconfiguration of actions on the part of the other. When such reconfiguration of actions occurs on both sides, it changes the formation of the joint action that is realised between the two actors. Moreover, we have revealed that the possibility of such changes is ever-present. This is because, within the relation between these two actors, although each of them attempts to perceive the other accurately, the other is always an aspect of an empirical world ‘that might go entirely unperceived by human beings, and which, even were it perceived, might be perceived entirely incorrectly’.

Thus, joint action (i.e., society) alters its form according to changes in the format of human beings’ self-interactions. However, thus stated, Blumer’s formula has, from time to time, been criticized as being overly micro-oriented. Its critics have pointed to its lack of a social structural viewpoint and the difficulties associated with it when attempting to account for collective-level phenomena. In response to such criticism, even within the theoretical framework of Blumer’s symbolic interactionism, various commentators adhering to the view that macro-level analysis is possible have counter-argued that, within Blumer’s symbolic interactionism, the term ‘actor’ also finds expression as an ‘acting unit’ and that the referent of this expression extends not only to individuals but also to groups. In other words, when analysing the micro-sphere, it perceives society (i.e., joint action) as being formed through interactions between individuals; on the other hand, when analysing the macro-sphere, it already perceives this as being formed by interactions between groups. However, thus stated, Blumer’s theory, as far as I can see, still suffers from two limitations. The first is that when conducting macro-analysis, the concept of self-interaction, which is a cornerstone of Blumer’s symbolic interactionism, retreats into the background of the analysis. The second is that envisioning Blumer’s theory in such a way makes any approach from the actor’s position—the methodological iron rule of Blumer’s symbolic interaction—impossible to implement.

How then might we perform a macro-analysis that positions the concept of self-interaction at the root of social theory and complies with the methodological iron rule of approaching analysis from the actor’s position? This is the greatest challenge that has been left by Blumer’s symbolic interactionism. (72‒75)

 

Cf. Tsukasa Kuwabara. Revised edition of the summary of my master’s thesis. Yahoo Japan Sites. 2016-06-12. URL: https://web.archive.org/web/20141207044801/http://www.geocities.jp/ptk20120118/2006-02a.jpg. Accessed: 2016-06-12. (Archived by WebCite® at http://www.webcitation.org/6iE1cTeRT).

 

About (5) “Doctoral Thesis” [http://warp.da.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/3492948/ecowww.leh.kagoshima-u.ac.jp/staff/kuwabara/doctor.htm]

The entire text of Sociology of Social Processes (http://warp.da.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/257958/www.sal.tohoku.ac.jp/guide/grad2000/pages/p16hakushigo.html), submitted to the Faculty of Arts and Letters of the Graduate School of Tohoku University in March 2000, after completing the coursework for but not obtaining the degree in the university’s doctoral program in March 1999.[13] This paper has also been published as Tsukasa Kuwabara, The Sociology of Social Processes, Kwansei Gakuin University Press BookPark (2000). Currently, these pages are linked to the following sites:

“Sunday Sociology” = https://web.archive.org/web/20080109133027/http://socio-logic.jp/list/weblist02.html

“Electronic Bibliography of Sociological Works” = https://web.archive.org/web/20040404025553/http://risya3.hus.osaka-u.ac.jp/Papers/

 

About (6) “Doctoral Thesis Abstract” [http://megalodon.jp/2016-0611-1123-31/ecowww.leh.kagoshima-u.ac.jp/staff/kuwabara/summary.htm]

The contents of this page are “Thesis Abstract” and “Thesis Examination Result Abstract” with slight revisions to the former paper, both of which appear on pages 248–259 of a booklet called Doctoral Thesis Abstracts and Examination Result Abstracts, Faculty of Letters, Volume 11 (conferred in 1999).[14] The contents on this page have also been published as Tsukasa Kuwabara, “Introduction to a Sociological Perspective on Symbolic Interactionism” (3) (2000) (summary of a doctoral dissertation, Tohoku University), Journal of Economics and Sociology, Kagoshima University, No. 54: 69–86.

 

About (7) “The First Chicago School of Sociology and Blumer’s Symbolic Interactionism” [http://megalodon.jp/2016-0611-1126-44/ecowww.leh.kagoshima-u.ac.jp/staff/kuwabara/Blumer-as-CS.htm ]

Aside from publishing the Journal of Economics and Sociology, Kagoshima University, the Department of Economics, Faculty of Law, Economics and Humanities has a program that releases research results in Discussions Papers in Economics and Sociology. My manuscript is on this page, published through this program: Tsukasa Kuwabara, “The First Chicago School of Sociology and Blumer’s Symbolic Interactionism” (2002), Discussion Papers in Economics and Sociology, No. 0203, The Economic Society of Kagoshima University.

 

About (8) “The Social Nature of the Self”[15] and (9) “Interaction and Mutual Consent”[16]

These articles have been contributed to two textbooks. The first one is included in Social Psychology of Ego and Self, edited by Mamoru Funatsu and Kiyoshi Ando (Hokuju Publishing, 2002). The latter appears in Social Psychology of Interaction, edited by Isamu Ito and Naohito Tokugawa (Hokuju Publishing, 2002). Both articles have been revised and posted online.

 

 

Editor's note^[17]

Not long ago, I made a big mistake by writing the wrong title on my manuscript. I titled the manuscript “Introduction to a Sociological Perspective on Symbolic Interactionism (3): The Summary of a Doctoral Dissertation, Tohoku University” instead of the correct title, “The Summary of a Doctoral Dissertation, Tohoku University: Introduction to a Sociological Perspective of Symbolic Interactionism (3) (refer to the headers of the odd-numbered pages of Journal of Economics and Sociology, Kagoshima University, No. 54 [pp. 71 to 83[18]]).[19] Whereas this type of mistake would have been unthinkable when papers were handwritten, it now results from frequent use of the cut-and-paste tool in word processing. However, now that word processors are becoming increasingly popular, should we not try to be more sensitive toward language than ever before? This is what I have started thinking lately. (Tsukasa Kuwabara, Faculty of Law, Economics and Humanities)