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Notes
The presumption shared by the likes of Husserl, Schutz, and Ibarra and Kitsuse to “bracket” the natural attitude as a whole in favor of a purely theoretical regard for things must be clearly distinguished from the type of bracketing recommended by Holstein and Gubrium (2003). The former seek a principled distinction between ontologically invested, socially interested practical action and a wholly detached and disinterested form of theoretical contemplation. The later seek only a systematic technique for prioritizing, foregrounding and backgrounding, aspects of social life given our different practical/theoretical interests in them (see also Goffman 1959, pp. 239-242). Unlike Husserl, Schutz, and Ibarra and Kitsuse, Holstein and Gubrium (2003) do not suggest that their constructionist analytics provides a technique with which the analyst might seek to completely emancipate herself from socially interested practice. They offer only a technique for methodically orchestrating our different interests.
In a footnote to the revised version of their 1993 essay, Ibarra and Kitsuse (2003, p. 48) write that the interpretive approach they advocate “engages and implicates the analyst in how these processes are ultimately rendered.” However, they continue, “We have no problem in assuming this responsibility; we merely insist that the raw materials of these analytic reconstructions originate with the categories and activities of the members.” I agree with the gist of this advice, which I interpret as a call for claimsmaking to remain the focus of social constructionist analyses. However, I am not sure it is possible for our analyses to originate exclusively with members’ categories and activities insofar as working out what the relevant categories and activities actually are will inevitably be a product of our interpretive work and not merely the self-evidently identifiable raw materials for it. I also suspect that identifying who is sufficiently salient in, or influential over, the process to warrant being categorized as a “member” in any given case will require considerably more analytic discretion than Ibarra and Kitsuse let on here.
The expression ‘dispute domain’ is borrowed from Miller and Holstein (1995, p. 38) who define it as follows, “A dispute domain consists of the fundamental assumptions, vocabularies, orientations, concerns, and constraints that circumscribe conflictual interactions within particular organizational circumstances…dispute domains provide the local conditions of possibility for disputing—the parameters for what disputes might become and the resources and orientations for their articulation.” FSSee Weinberg (2002) for a discussion of dispute domains within the context of social scientific method.
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Acknowledgement
Heartfelt thanks to Larry Nichols and Peter Ibarra for inviting me to participate in this well deserved homage to John Kitsuse. John was a gifted sociologist and a generous teacher from whom I’ve learned a great deal, particularly about social constructionism. This essay is dedicated to his memory and to the memory of my mentor, Mel Pollner, in the fondest hope that their legacies will flourish.
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Weinberg, D. On the Social Construction of Social Problems and Social Problems Theory: A Contribution to the Legacy of John Kitsuse. Am Soc 40, 61–78 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-008-9059-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-008-9059-5