Symbolic Interactionism

Alidon | Arabit | Baybay | Cruz | Felomino | Gonzales | Martinez | Parungao | Wagwag

SOC 129 A
Introduction
GEORG SIMMEL
The central principles of symbolic interactionism are principally derived from the
work of Georg Simmel.

Among the classic writers of sociology, Simmel was the one who focused almost
exclusively on the micro foundations of the world.

Contributions:

Formulated key interactionist perspectives:

- Social interaction
- Social distance or sociation

Provided groundwork for the theories of G.H. Mead, William Thomas, and Herbert
Blumer
Simmel’s perception of ethnic relations as a particular form of individual and group
interaction, which is always restrained with ambiguities and dependent on the
changing dynamics of individual and group differences, remains a key statement
of SI

A focus on persistent and changing group interpretations and reinterpretations of

theirs and others’ social position lies at the heart of Simmel’s project, which is a
crucial element that SI use in theorizing ethnic relations.

Primacy of agency over structure, as well as symbols and values over material
interests and political motives in everyday life of different ethnic groups.
General Principles
The Chicago School of Sociology

● borrowed initially from animal and plant ecology to establish a “science of

human ecology”
● Human ecology was focused on identifying and analyzing what is completely
human (L. WIRTH, 1945)
■ the capacity for symbolic communication, rationality, relatively great mobility, and
formal organization and control and the possession of technology and culture
● Chicago sociologists were predominantly occupied with city life and the
impact of modernization, urbanization, and industrialization had on everyday
group relations
General Principles
The Chicago School of Sociology

● “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences” (W.I.
Thomas, 1969 [1923])
● Treat objects of research as free thinking subjects capable of reaching
rational decision in their everyday encounter
● C. Cooley’s looking glass self
● Influenced by Simmel’s: undefined malaise we call social unrest (Park, 1950)
General Principles
GH Mead

● the act as an elementary unit of analysis

○ four distinct and interrelated stages:
■ Impulse stimulates the actor’s reaction
■ through perception, an actor visualizes and thus creates an object as an object
■ manipulation helps an actor conceptualize possibilities of his/her action
■ consummation involves the actual process of acting (to fulfil original impulse)
● not on isolated action but on social action
● gesture as an essential building block of the social act: significant symbol
○ language: meticulous set of meanings
General Principles
GH Mead

● “Delayed reaction is necessary to intelligent conduct”

● social action creates “mind”: no more than an individual’s capacity to respond
in an organized way to a wider society
● “self”: individual’s aptitude to conceive oneself as an object
● Self is truly a product of social activity
● generalized other: the outlook of the communities one is a member of
● Self is a complex social process
○ “Me” stands for the conventional conformist and routine behavior of self
○ “I” stands for impulsive, unpredictable and creative action through which self is fully realized
as a unique individual
General Principles
H Blumer

● adopted Mead’s conceptual framework but moved it away from its

behaviorist heritage and gave it a much stronger sociological underprinting
● saw social action as being prior to thinking
● definition of the situation: there’s no single universal reality; individuals and
groups define what their particular social reality is
● collective action (joint action): authentic and autonomous form of activity
created by actors involved in it
○ often tied with pre-existing cultural codes and meanings ingrained in particular social order
○ cultural norms and material structural constraints place limits on individual and group action
General Principles
H Blumer

● All social institutions are a product of joint actions

● Interactions between different social groups are also shaped by a particular
individual and group perceptions
● Peculiar sense of group position: includes their perception of other groups as
well as self perception of their own group’s position: it incorporates the
experiences directly in connection to inter-group relations and influences
group’s courses of action
Symbolic Interactionism
and Ethnicity
SI and Ethnicity
R. Park
● Theory of ‘race relations cycle’
● social distance
● group prejudice
● the marginal man
● Ethnic relations as developing along a relatively stable pattern of cycles that
include four separate stages of group interaction:
○ contact/competition
○ conflict
○ accomodation
○ assimilation
SI and Ethnicity
R. Park
● Competition - seen as a universal form of social interaction, largely undetectable
as such at the level of the individual; determines the the position of the individual
in the community
● Conflict - a more personal affair; fixes an individual’s place in society
● Accomodation - restructuring the former hierarchy between dominant &
subordinate groups by re-negotiating or re-establishing relations of power and
status
● Assimilation - a process of inter-penetration and fusion in which person and
groups acquire the memories, sentiments, and attitudes of other persons or
groups, and, by sharing their experience and history
SI and Ethnicity
R. Park
● Group Prejudice
○ not so much as a characteristics of an individual but rather as an indicator of changing
relationships between groups
○ amplified when the subordinate group starts to perceive social reality as something
which can be changed, and they attempt to change the existing social order
● Social Distance
○ the ethnic group’s proximity has a direct impact on inter-group relations: the lesser the
social distance between the groups the greater their mutual influence
SI and Ethnicity
R. Park
● the ‘marginal man’
○ represents an outsider who does not belong to any dominant culture
○ epitomizes a new personality:
■ ‘living and sharing intimately in the cultural life and traditions of two distinct
peoples; never quite willing to break, even if permitted to do so, with his past and his
traditions, and not quite accepted, because of racial prejudice, in the new society in
which he now sought to find a place’
○ a prototype of the future -- a cosmopolitan personality with wider horizons and greater
sense of civilization and progress
SI and Ethnicity
H. Blumer

● Ethnic Prejudice
○ to understand prejudice one has to move from focusing on the individual feelings of
‘racist’ to a ‘sense of group position’
○ Ethnic group animosities or sympathies are for the most part derived from one’s sense
of one’s group’s position in relation to the other group.
○ It’s function is to maintain the hegemonic position of the dominant group by preserving
the status quo in their relations through:
■ Socialization
■ Role of political elites
SI and Ethnicity
Blumer and Duster
● ‘Collective Definition’
○ the basic process by which racial [ethnic] groups come to see each other and
themselves and poise themselves to act towards each other; the process is one in
which the racial [ethnic] groups are defining or interpreting their experiences and events
that brings these experiences about
● Collective definition of a situation is an ongoing process of experiencing
○ Two groups continually undergo two conflicting principles of collective definition: one
concerned with the uniqueness of the group and the other with the group’s social status
● The relations between ethnic groups are never fixed: they might be shaped by the objective
conditions such as economic exploitation or institutionalized asymmetry of power, but these
factors become meaningful only in relation to definitions ethnic groups make of each other
SI and Ethnicity
Richard Jenkins

● Ethnicity is a variable rather than a fixed state of being; it is a cultural

phenomenon based on shared meanings; it originates and is dependent on
social interaction; it is a segment of a broader social identity that every
individual holds and as such it is shaped through the dialectic between
similarity and difference.
● Ehnic group membership owes a great deal to the external process of social
categorization.
● Social categorization relates to the capacity of one group to successfully
impose it's categories of ascription to another set of people, and to the
resources which that categorized collectivity can draw upon to resist, if need
be, that imposition in return.
SI and Ethnicity
Richard Jenkins

● External Social Categorization when undertaken by legimate authority can

foster ethnic group consciousness. (E.G. Moldavin, Bosnian Muslim, and
Macedonian ethnicities)
● The emphasis on social categorization indicates one of the key sources of
ethnic group antagonism: the asymmetrical relations of power.
● In sum ethnic relations are the outcome of an ongoing process of social
interaction that involve both external and internal definitions of the situation.
Social construction of ethnicity
SIMMEL
- A focus on persistent and changing group interpretations and reinterpretations
of theirs and others’ social position
- society as a total of individual and group interactions and its application in ethnic
relations
- - fluidity and variety of ethnic relations

SI focus
- the individual and group perception of social reality
- deconstruct strong and naturalistic claims about ethnic relations
- argued the social construction of ethnic group realities
“ethnic collectivities represent quintessence of
those humanly created, internalized, and
institutionalized webs of meanings”

-Weber (1968) and Geertz (1973)

ETHNIC REALITY ‘Naturalness’
However, collective definitions of ethnic group
are dramatically altered under
changing circumstances membership
 1. SI has shaky epistemological
3 weaknesses foundations, which undermine
its analytical claims including
of SI its theory of ethnicity
 2. the theory is too agency-centered
3 weaknesses and as such is unable to deal with
structural constraints in the
of SI analysis of ethnic relations
 3. the theory is too focused on
values and meanings in the

3 weaknesses collective definition of ethnic reality

so that it underestimates the

of SI impact of material factors such as

political power ot the forces of
economy
Symbolic Interactionist

● intensely relativist
- all belief systems have equal epistemological validity

● potentially populist
- collective perception as ‘universal truth’ vs particular definition of the
situation
 SI vs. Other Perspectives

Ethnic identities are flexible, Vision of ethnicity in seeing

fluid, changeable, optional, their ethnic group membership
and often instrumental as fixed, innate, and eternal
 So, is ethnicity only a social construct?

YES.

Since collective perceptions of reality are not only intensely shaped and
‘contaminated’ by the institutions of the state, mass media, educational system or
by the interests of political entities, but are also perceived by social actors as real
entities.
Conclusion
 ● Symbolic Interactionism aims

Conclusion to demonstrate that social life

is defined by action: it is
always in process, always
emerging, becoming, changing.
 ● Ethnic relations is an ongoing,
flexible and situational process
Conclusion open to and shaped by the
changes in the collective
definition of ethnic group
reality
 ● Ethnic identity is an object of
change and negotiation

Conclusion ● subjective interpretation of

inter-ethnic group reality has
precedence over objective
changes in social structure,
power, or economic relations
between ethnic groups
 ● SI has little understanding of

Conclusion the role of force, power,

authority and other social
realities in ethnic group
relationships
 ● Too much focus on the agent’s

Conclusion point point of view, SI is unable

to deal with the dramatic
structural changes that affect
intergroup relationships