The Rising Salience of the Absent: An Interactionist Analysis

Sam Hillyard

doi:10.18778/1733-8077.15.2.05

Authors

Sam Hillyard Durham University, UK

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.15.2.05

Keywords:

Rural, Interactionism, Ethnography, Absence, Definition of the Situation, New Social Media

Abstract

The paper uses examples from rural studies to demonstrate the relevance of symbolic interactionism for unlocking the complexity of contemporary society. It does so by making a case for a nonprescriptive theory-method dialectic. Case examples are drawn upon in support of the argumentation, including early interactionism and ethnographic work in the United Kingdom, and, in the second half of the paper, rural sociology and fieldwork. The main argument presented is that the traditional remit of interactionism should be extended to recognize how absence is increasingly influential. It concludes that interactionism is in tune with other new trajectories in the social sciences that take into consideration co-presence proximity both on and off-line.

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Author Biography

Sam Hillyard, Durham University, UK

Sam Hillyard is a Reader in Sociology at Durham University. She is series editor of Studies in Qualitative Methodology (Emerald) and a member of the editorial board of Qualitative Research. Her research interests lie with the synergies between theoretical ideas and empirical ethnographic research. This has been applied across a variety of research settings, with recent projects including game shooting in the United Kingdom and access to elite higher education. These interests are also reflected in a series of funding awards from the ESRC, the Rural Economy and Land Use program (ESRC, NERC, BBSRC), and Natural Resources Wales. Books include Doing Fieldwork (2016), co-authored with Professor Christopher Pole, and Approaches to Fieldwork (2014), a four-volume collection on fieldwork for Sage. Social life… is not particularly amenable to deep systematic analysis… Indeed I have heard it said that we should be glad to trade what we’ve so far produced for a few really good conceptual distinctions and a cold beer. But there’s nothing in the world that we should trade for what we do have: the bent to sustain in regard to all elements of social life a spirit of unfettered, unsponsored inquiry and the wisdom not to look elsewhere but ourselves and our discipline for that mandate. [Goffman 1983:17] [B]ecause theory is so obviously difficult, the theorist takes on an aura that sets her apart from others… puffing out their theoretical feathers. [Craib 1992:4-5]

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