Overcoming “Analytic Interruptus”: The Genesis, Development, and Future of Generic Social Processes

Self Cite

Drawing on ethnographic research in a homeless shelter, this article examines how caseworkers navigate an occupation that is often physically and morally trying, and at times, objectionable. Given this context, we examine the ways in which caseworkers identify and define "dirty work," often seen as a source of occupational degradation, according to two main typifications: the physical and the moral. Building on Erving Goffman's frame analysis, we examine the definitional and interactional strategies actors use to transform unpleasant first-order realities to more valued, meaningful, or workable second order realities, by keying particular frames of meaning. These involve framing dirty work through (1) a professional lens, (2) humanism and egalitarianism, (3) a negotiated interpretation of institutional rules, and (4) the use of humor. We conclude by reflecting on the constructed nature of dirty work, and the importance of framing strategies in the sociology of occupations, suggesting that a more generic application of these ideas may be useful across a number of other social contexts.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reframing “Dirty Work”: The Case of Homeless Shelter Workers

Torelli

Puddephatt

2020

Self Cite

“…Grills uses these elements of social process to facilitate his aim of “pursuing transcontextuality” through the identification of generic social processes (Grills 2020). As Lofland (1976:31) notes, this involves “conceiving of a situation generically” and answering the question “of what abstract, sociologically conceived class of situation is this particular situation an instance?” The focus on generic social processes and transcontextuality is designed to deliver a more fulsome conceptualization of the social condition by providing a corrective to the “analytic interruptus” (Lofland 1970:34; McLuhan and Puddephatt 2019) which occurs in studies that stop with a description of the particular and fail to connect the findings with the larger dynamics of human group life.…”

Section: Contributions Of This Special Issuementioning

confidence: 99%

An Embattled Yet Enduring Influence: Introduction to a Special Issue on Blumerian Symbolic Interactionism

Low

Bowden

2020

The papers in this special issue celebrate and build on the insights Blumer provides in his pivotal book Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method. In setting the context for these papers, we discuss the significance of Blumer's variant of interactionism, his contributions to the discipline of sociology, the misinterpretations and misrepresentations of his approach, and the way in which the papers in this issue carry forward his legacy.

“…As McLuhan and Puddephatt (2019) have suggested, attending to GSPs offers something of a corrective to what Lofland (1970) describes as “analytic interruptus”—where the analysis of the setting at hand stalls at the level of the depiction of the particular. What is interrupted is the conceptualization of the social world.…”

Section: Pursuing Transcontextualitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We can have wonderfully and carefully crafted renderings of this or that setting but the relative lack of transcontextual relevance suggests various analogies. Lofland (1976) compares such constructs to “cameos,” McLuhan and Puddephatt (2019) employ the analogy of the “island,” and Zerubavel (2015) uses the term “attentional ghettos.” Each of these analogies addresses a shared problem. Unless interactionist researchers can increase the conceptual relevance of their work, their efforts will remain disconnected from a larger discussion of human group life.…”

Section: Pursuing Transcontextualitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding Everyday Life: Generic Social Processes and the Pursuit of Transcontextuality

Grills

2019

This paper joins earlier interactionist projects in advocating for an analytical attentiveness to generic social process (GSP). This dynamic form of theorizing is indebted to the thought of Herbert Blumer and the extended phenomenological and pragmatist traditions. Rather centrally, the study of GSPs draws upon the foundational concepts of duration, intersubjectivity, and the self. Such concepts have contributed to some of symbolic interactionism's most enduring, empirically grounded and theoretically robust work. Drawing on a series of ethnographic research projects, this paper offers a research agenda for engaging GSPs transcontextually. Specifically, I argue for extending the study of GSPs through the examination of management in everyday life, the creation of subcultural value, and the social construction of doubt.