Time as Vernacular Resource: Temporality and Credibility in Social Problems Claims-Making

Abstract

Written for Dorothy Pawluch's festschrift for The American Sociologist, this paper seeks to advance constructionist conceptualization and theorizing of time. Our goal is to contribute to expanding the social constructionist toolkit by considering the role of temporality in social problems claims-making, i.e., temporal hermeneutics or time as a vernacular resource. We background this focus with a brief overview of sociological examinations of time, with a particular focus on the writings of George Herbert Mead, who developed key concepts that point to an underdeveloped sociology of time. We argue that 'hewing' to members own projections and invocations of time helps analysts to remain agnostic regarding the examination of definitional processes. Two case studies indicate potential directions forward. First is the case of the 'tank man' image/meme, originating from news coverage of the June 4, 1989 Chinese government crackdown on pro-democracy activists in Tiananmen Square. Second, we explore the case of 'missing time' experienced by those claiming to have encountered aliens and unidentified flying objects (UFOs). These very different cases suggest the wide range of applications a hermeneutics of temporality may offer to constructionist scholarship. KeywordsSocial constructionism • Credibility • Time and temporality • Tank man • UFOs missing time * Michael Adorjan

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