At the heart of the sociological enterprise is the idea that human behavior is the product of community life; that people's behaviors cannot be reduced to individual properties. A major task facing sociologists ( and social scientists more generally), revolves around the study of the accomplishment of intersubjectivity; that is, indicating how people become social entities and how they attend to one another and the products of human endeavor on a day-to-day basis. Taking issue with both positivist and postmodernist orientations to the social sciences, the approach taken here insists that the theory and methods of the social sciences respect "the actualities of human group life." The objective is to establish a greater (epistemological) coherence between the theory, methods, and research which typifies the social sciences, and the actual, ongoing practices and experiences of those who constitute the human community. This necessitates a radical reorientation of our images of science generally, but most particularly of the "scientific method" as this pertains to the study of the human condition. Focusing on the "doing" of everyday life, this volume examines a series of theoretical and methodological issues entailed in an interpretive/ethnographic study of human group life. The ideas developed here deal with the historical roots, assumptions, variants, concepts and literature characterizing an interpretive/ethnographic approach to the study of human behavior and examine many of the major issues and obstacles facing those embarking on the study of human lived experience.

Table of Contents:
Foreword by Kathy Charmaz Preface Acknowledgments 1. STUDYING HUMAN LIVED EXPERIENCE An Introduction to the Intersubjective Enterprise Social Science and an Introduction to the Postitivist-Interpretivist Debate Symbolic Interaction and the Study of Human Lived Experience Ethnographic Research: The Quest for Intimate Familiarity Overview of the Volume 2. INTERPRETIVE ROOTS Experience as Intersubjective Reality The Hermeneutic (Interpretive) Tradition Wilhelm Dilthey: Interpretation as Intersubjectivity Georg Simmel: Form and Content Max Weber: Emphasizing and Obscuring Verstehen Sociology Wilhelm Wundt: Intersubjective Dimensions of Folk Psychology American Pragmatism: Practical Accomplishment Early Interactionism: Theory and Methods Charles Horton Cooley: Language, Process, and Sympathetic Introspection George Herbert Mead: Mind, Self, and Society in Action Conclusion 3. CONTEMPORARY VARIANTS OF THE INTERPRETIVE TRADITION Symbolic Interaction et al. Chicago-Style Symbolic Interaction: Herbert Blumer Other Variants of the Interpretive Approach The Iowa School of Symbolic Interaction Dramaturgical Sociology Labeling Theory Phenomenological Sociology The Philosophical Underpinnings of Everyday Life Reality Construction Theory Ethnomethodology Structuration Theory The New (Constructionist) Sociology of Science 4. THE ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH TRADITION Encountering the Other Historical and Anthropological Dimensions of Ethnographic Research Ethnography as a Sociological Venture: Field Research at the University of Chicago Albion Small: Organizer and Facilitator William Isaac Thomas (and Florian Znaniecki): The Polish Peasant George Herbert Mead: Symbolic Significances of the Human Group Ellsworth Faris: Ethnographer in the Shadows Robert Ezra Park and Ernest Burgess: Exploring the City Student Ethnographies: Learning by Doing Chicago Sociology in Transition Everett Hughes: Sociologist at Work Herbert Blumer: Providing the Conceptual Base Carrying On the Tradition 5 GENERIC SOCIAL PROCESS Transcontextualizing Ethnographic Inquiry Generic Social Processes and the Study of Human Group Life The Chicago Influence Other Statements on Generic Social Processes Achieving Ethnographic Transcontextuality Acquiring Perspectives Achieving Identity Being Involved Doing Activity Experiencing Relationships Forming and Coordinating Associations Conclusions 6 EXPERIENCING EMOTIONALITY Affectivity as a Generic Social Process Emotionality: Interactionist Dimensions Learning to Define Emotional Experiences Developing Techniques for Expressing and Controlling Emotional Experiences Experiencing Emotional Episodes and Entanglements Emotionality and the Ethnographer Self Sustaining the Ethnographic Focus Ethnographic Research and Generic Social Processes Managing and Expressing Emotionality in the Field 7. BETWIXT POSITIVIST PROCLIVITIES AND POSTMODERNIST PROPENSITIES Pursuing the Pragmatics of Presence through the Ethnographic Other Positivist/Structuralist Social Science: Premises, Pursuits, and Pitfalls Positivist Physical Science and Social Science Orientations Positivist Dilemmas: Epistemological Challenges and Motivated Resistances Synthesis and Reconciliations: Feasibilities and Practical Limitations Postmodernist Propensities: Nietzschean Skepticism, Linguistic Reductionism, and Mixed Agendas Postmodernist Methodological Resurrectionism: Representing and Obscuring the Ethnographic Other 8. OBDURATE REALITY AND THE INTERSUBJECTIVE OTHER The Problematics of Representation and the Privilege of Presence (with Lorne Dawson) On the Nature of "Obdurate Reality" The Problematics of Representation and the "Privilege of Presence" References Index of Names Index of Terms