The Sad Demise, Mysterious Disappearance, and Glorious Triumph of Symbolic Interactionism
Author(s)
Fine, Gary Alan
Abstract
Symbolic interactionism argues that persons are active agents in constructing their own behaviors and do so in ways that do not sustain existing forms of social organization. I will explore the decline of symbolic interactionism 15-20 years ago, including appraising the critiques and evaluations that led it its being written off. I will then develop the theme of vitalization suggesting what it is that justifies the claim itself and I will close by estimating what all of this means for the future of symbolic interactionism. My claim is that a properly supplanted symbolic interactionism, which accords an important place to social structure, has reentered the arena of general sociological frameworks and has the right to be taken seriously as such.