Joseph R. Gusfield

The theme throughout Contested Meanings is the conflicting and changing ways society defines social problems. He emerges in the course of the book as a thoughtful and realistic social critic who looks beyond analyses of drinking as pathological behavior to consider the place of alcohol in American popular and leisure culture.

The Construction of Alcohol Problems

Contested Meanings

Anselm L. Strauss

This book contains a major statement by one of America's most preeminent sociologists on what remains an important problem in American history and social analysis: the nature and extent of movement within American society from one status to another. The most important images of mobility involve self-improvement by changing location (going to the frontier, coming to the big city), and by changing social class (second-generation immigrants). Almost all sociological and historical analysis has been limited to these themes. Strauss extends the concept to a wide range of ideologies, institutional contexts, and social movements; his analysis is based on a formal theory of status passage and develops a partial theory of mobility. Strauss addresses a theme that underscores much of one strand of his work: the changing articulation of individuals with their social structure and institutions. The book follows on from the theoretical presuppositions of Discovery of Grounded Theory and the formal theory presented in Status Passage. Strauss was continually concerned with American social and intellectual life in its historical and contemporary manifestations. No one else has looked at the important phenomenon of mobility in this broad a context and from this point of view. The book remains important to those concerned with the social history of America and with problems of social change. Anselm Strauss (1916-1996) was professor of sociology and chair of the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago where he also taught. He was a pioneer in bridging the gap between theory and data in sociology. Joseph Gusfield is Emeritus Professor in Sociology at University of California, San Diego. He received his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago and taught there, at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, at the University of Illinois before going to UCSD. Among his major works are Symbolic Crusade: Status Politics and the American Temperance Movement, and The Culture of Public Problems: Drinking-Driving and the Symbolic Order. He has also taught and conducted research in India and Japan.

Ideology and Theory

The Contexts of Social Mobility

In recent years the social sciences and the humanities have drawn closer to each other in thought and method. Literary criticism and theory, philosophy, and humanistic history have become part of the common background of sociologists, as scholars in literature, philosophy, and history have become attuned to work in sociology. This rapprochement between the humanities and the social sciences has led to new perceptions of human behavior by sociologists as well as new methodological orientations in their work. In Performing Action, Joseph R. Gusfield draws on drama and fiction show how certain aspects of human action are shaped by the formal dimensions of performance. He shows that observing and understanding behavior is analogous to what we do in reading a book, viewing a painting, or watching a play. The concept of behavior as artistic performance is defined in chapter 1. Part 1, "Rhetoric," presents two chapters analyzing routine and classic social research reports as literary performances in qualitative and quantitative terms. The next chapter uses concepts drawn from dramatic criticism to examine diverse aspects of social behavior. The concluding chapter treats athletic competition as one form of narrative. Part 2, "Reflexivity," includes chapters on social movements and public actions, pointing out the ways in which objects and events are products of the interpretation and reflection of individuals. Gusfield considers how and why the character of social movements changed from the early to the late twentieth century. He then explores how movements affect social life by their very occurrence and impact on participants and observers. Subsequent chapters in this section discuss the reflexive character of recent social movements and how the content of the "traditional" in three different societies is itself a product of contemporary attitudes and reflections. Part 4, "Symbolism," draws upon literary and artistic conventions to deal with issues of representation and meaning. The first chapter reviews studies of symbolism in modern life generally while the remaining three analyze symbolism in particular areas: natural food movements, smoking and public health, and the pot-luck meal in American life. The book's last chapter is a conceptual summary, examining the relations between sociology as science and art to argue that sociological methods are neither but partake of both. Following the philosopher Paul Ricouer, Gusfield shows how human behavior is capable of of being read as a text, always telling the the participant or observer "something about something." Performing Actions will be of interest to sociologists, psychologists, and students of aesthetics and critical theory. Joseph R. Gusfield is professor emeritus of sociology at the University of California, San Diego. His books include Contested Meanings: The Construction of Alcohol Problems, The Culture of Public Problems, Mass Society and Extremist Politics, and Symbolic Crusade: Status Politics and the American Temperance Movement.

Artistry in Human Behavior and Social Research

Performing Action

Symbolic Crusade; Status Politics and the American Temperance Movement [By] Joseph R. Gusfield

The important role of the Temperance movement throughout American history is analyzed as clashes and conflicts between rival social systems, cultures, and status groups. Sometimes the "dry" is winning the classic battle for prestige and political power. Sometimes, as in today's society, he is losing. This significant contribution to the theory of status conflict also discloses the importance of political acts as symbolic acts and offers a dramatistic theory of status politics, Gusfield provides a useful addition to the economic and psychological modes of analysis current in the study of political and social movements.

Joseph R. Gusfield

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