Abstract
Athens (Domination and subjugation in everyday life. Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, 2015a) challenges those working within the extended symbolic interactionist tradition to attend to dominance practices in everyday life (Athens (Domination and subjugation in everyday life. Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, 2015a) advances an argument for radical interactionism, which I include under the extended symbolic interactionist tradition). While dominance may be associated with various negative connotations such as control, oppression, and subjugation, dominance itself may be best understood in process terms. In this paper I examine dominance as accomplished action. Dominance (and conflict and subjugation) may be framed as generic social processes which are aspects of social life that play themselves out trans-historically, trans-contextually and trans-situationally. This paper examines some of the central themes that arise in attending to dominance processes in the context of university management and specifically examines the process of dominatization in management contexts.
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Notes
- 1.
The theoretical framework for this paper draws centrally upon Mead (1934, 1938) and Blumer (1969), but is also indebted to the work of Alfred Schütz (1962, 1964), Wilhelm Dilthey (Ermarth 1978), and Anselm Strauss (1993). For an extended discussion of the foundational premises of symbolic interaction see Grills and Prus (2019:43–78).
- 2.
While this paper attends to dominance encounters as a generic social process, related processes include: (a) acquiring perspectives; (b) achieving identity; (c) doing activity (performing activities, influencing others, making commitments); (d) developing relationships; (e) experiencing emotionality; (f) achieving linguistic fluency; and (g) participating in collective events (Grills & Prus, 2019).
- 3.
For an extended discussion of management in the context of generic social process theory see Grills (2020).
- 4.
This is a considerably condensed adaptation of material presented in Grills and Prus (2019:45–52).
- 5.
Note the emphasis in this sentence. That the tensions between contrarians are resolved via conflict is but one possible outcome. As such Simmel’s approach is more attentive to the various contingencies in everyday life than the more dialectical framing of conflict offered by Marx.
- 6.
For example, the mandate of the Senate of Queen’s University in 1968 was to “to determine all matters of an academic character which affect the University as a whole, and to be concerned with all matters which affect the welfare of the University” (Hooey, 1996).
- 7.
For example, it is hard to imagine that those who created the construct of the Presidential pardon in the United States of America imagined that a sitting President would affirm “… I have the absolute right to PARDON myself” (emphasis in the original, @realdonanldtrump June 04, 2018) and thereby set themselves above the rule of law.
- 8.
Goffman’s (1968) Asylums moves beyond the specifics of the “mental hospital” under study to attend to the ideal typical features of total institutions more generically and by so doing draws out some of the parallels between monasteries, prisons, hospitals, long term care facilities and universities.
- 9.
From the Collective Agreement between Brandon University and the Brandon University Faculty Association 2015–19, Article 7.1(a), page 14.
- 10.
For a further discussion of these themes see the chapter “Being Managed and Managing Self: Processes and Problematics of Self-regulation” in Grills and Prus (2019).
- 11.
- 12.
For example, anticipating taking on the role of university president may be quite distinct from the ‘on the ground’ lived realities of the experience—the image of the institution portrayed by those recruiting a new president may differ meaningfully from the initial experience of office.
- 13.
Readers are particularly directed to Lemert’s (1962) classic Paranoia and the Dynamics of Exclusion for a foundational essay in this tradition.
- 14.
- 15.
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Grills, S. (2022). Dominance Encounters in University Management. In: Poff, D.C. (eds) University Corporate Social Responsibility and University Governance. Advances in Business Ethics Research, vol 8. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77532-2_7
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