The key challenge which symbolic interactionism seeks to address is one that runs throughout social science: should we think about the social world as something that can be explained by causal relationships, and thus draw out models based on observable behaviour, or is the social world something that we create by our actions, even if we comply very largely with what is expected of us? If the latter then we have to make social research engage with uncovering the meaning of action and deal with questions of mind, identity and free will in the process. Symbolic interactionism is not unique for its concern for understanding meaning but it has been a huge influence on naturalistic research inquiry.

Charon (1992) sees an ontological basis for symbolic interactionism in a belief that we have our subjective perceptive on reality. Perspectives on reality are important as they enable us to make sense of the world (see positionality) but perspectives are distorting too, ie, they lead us to filter out some things and direct us to pay attention to others.

Perspectives are the key concern for symbolic interactionism but understanding perspectives is complex; we don't 'put on' a perspective, and leave it on, everywhere we go. Each situation we encounter calls forth a different ways of behaving and as we encounter any number of situations during our lives our perspectives are ever changing too. Identities are formed within our interactions with others, and it is an open question to what degree we can talk about stable personality traits.

Symbolic interactionism is interested in the interplay between the roles we encounter, our playing of these roles, and our ability to reflect on and at times change the nature of roles. Symbolic interactionists note how carefully we are socialised into roles. For example at the most basic level we are given a name at birth and given a way to think about our gender from that day onwards. And we are not just socialised into roles at a macro level, roles are mutually enforced by reference groups (those groups cultures we identify most with) and significant others (those individuals that most influence us). This means that, in practice, much social interaction is predictable and shared understanding is achieved without too much disruption. However we have some control over our interaction. We can think about how to present ourselves to others and make inferences on how ourselves see us. This gives us the ability to step back from our roles; everything depends on how we define the situations we encounter. We can play at roles, something we discover through play when we are very young. We are reflective and reflexive beings as we have a social self that enables us to act in every situation but one from which we can view from a distance.

Symbolic interactionism has roots in the work of pragmatists, in particular Peirce, and popularised in Herbert Mead, though much of Mead’s work was pieced together from lectures he had given. Symbolic interactionism was influential in the USA in particular, as seen for example in the ethnography of cities work carried out at the University of Chicago (e.g. Whyte, 1943). Symbolic interactionism was later popularised in the 1960s via Goffman’s (1965) work on asylums and Berger’s (1966) introduction to sociology, amongst other sources. [1]

Essential to understanding symbolic interactionism is that our world is symbolic. Not just objects, but stories have symbolic power and are reinterpreted according to our purposes and our understanding of that purpose. Language lies at the heart of how we negotiate meaning in the world.

Symbolic interactionism lends itself to many different approaches. Some writers share many of the key concerns of symbolic interactionism but shy away from using the term. For example Goffman, earlier, was important in popularising ideas of symbolic interactionism. However Goffman does not himself claim to be a symbolic interactionist but more interested in the ‘interaction order’. His particular interest is in the staging of social life and introduces a special concern for the rituals of social life. His landmark study looked at asylums with a focus on what happens when the self is defined, and solely defined, by the total institution. In Asylums the patient is faced with an impossible dilemma either to accept the definition of the situation that they are ill, and accept all the consequences of this definition, or to resist it, but fail to access support.

A second example of the interaction order (though this time labelled as symbolic interactionism) was work supervised by Goffman, that concerned a study of an orthodox synague (Heilman, 1976). This very readable book is about a small Jewish orthodox synagogue in a city in USA. This is not a total institution, members have lives outside of the membership of the synagogue, but it is a study of a bordered and defined setting. Heilman looks in particular at socialising, prayer study and prayer rituals within the synagogue. He notes he can offer an ‘instrumental description’ of the synagogue but this would miss the meaning that members invest in interaction. He explores these meanings, noting for example that some objects have a sacred significance and some a profane or everyday significance but these meanings may shift at different times and for different people. Similarly he looks at the significance that language has for the congregation, noting the use of the sacred language of Hebrew for prayers and the every day use of Yiddish, as well as the use of ‘Yinglish’ on particular occasions. He is able to study rituals such as sharing jokes and singing and praying too.

I finish on a couple of recent examples of symbolic interactionism at work. Lorenzen (early view) looks at the meaning of gift exchanges. This is interesting ground for symbolic interactionists as it involves ritual, and strongly enforced ritual at that, but something which some people, at least, would like to opt out of. In this study Lorenzen looks at the difficulties these would-be opter-outers face as they try to resist social constructed rituals and how their intentions are compromised and negotiated by strategies. This gives the author an opportunity to look into history of research on gift giving and the role of social networks in the maintenance of order

A second study, which again wears its symbolic interactionism lightly, looks at the meaning that language plays for Russian speaking Latvians living in London. Like Heilman earlier, Lulle and Jurkane-Hobein (2017) are interested in use of language and find these Russian speakers were defined by their language rather than ethnicity in Latvia, becoming marginalised in post soviet Latvian society. The authors look at how these Russian speakers sought to change their status in London and the strategies they followed in their attempt to do so.

The strength of symbolic interactionism is its concern for how we act and our search for meaning. Thus if we see positivist social science as failing to notice that we, human beings, have reflective consciousness and live in symbolic worlds then we might look towards symbolic interactionism. Symbolic interactionism focuses on the micro (immediate interactions) without throwing out the idea that social institutions influences us and we internalise those influences. The approach is social psychological. However for some symbolic interactionism has too little to say about class and power at a macro level and for others conducting symbolic interactionism seems to require huge amounts of time and energy for limited return. Finally for some post modernism symbolic interactionism ascribes too great a rationality to behaviour and fails to embrace the chaotic nature of our lives.

[1] There has always been a close link between symbolic interactionism and fiction as all stories tend to deal with inner perspectives and symbolic meaning. For example Kazuo Ishiguro’s (1989) The Remains of the Day is an almost sociological exploration of role and identity. Melville’s (1851) Moby Dick was interested, long before fashionable, in ways in which objects can be seen quite differently by different people.

References

Berger, P. (1966) Invitation to Sociology, London: Penguin.

Charon, J. with Cahill, S. (1992) Symbolic interactionism: an introduction, an interpretation, an integration, New York: Prentice Hall.

Goffman, E. (1990) Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates. New York: Doubleday.

Heilman, S. (1976 / 2016) Synagogue Life: A Study in Symbolic Interaction, Chicago, University of Chicago Press.

Ishiguro, I. (1989) The Remains of the Day, London, ‎Faber and Faber.

Lorenzen. J. (early view) Social network challenges to reducing consumption: the problem of gift giving, Symbolic Interaction.

Lulle, A. & Jurkane-Hobein, I. (2017) Strangers within? Russian-speakers’ migration from Latvia to London: a study in power geometry and intersectionality, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 43:4, 596-612.

Melville, H. (1851) Moby Dick - see chapter XCIX. The Doubloon accessed at http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2701?

Whyte, W. (1943) Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italian Slum. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,