ANTHRO 136K Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Anthony Giddens, The Symbolic, Structuration Theory
28 Jun 2018
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ANTHRO 139K - Lecture 9 - Gender and Anthropological Theories of Performance
Symbolic Interactionism
●The Mead-Blumer Model:
○Reality is a sociocultural construction determined by the context in which it is
practiced. Accordingly, humans are suspended in self created webs of
signification.
○MEANING, LANGUAGE, and THOUGHT are core dynamics that shape selfhood,
socialization, and society.
■MEANING: Individuals think about and act towards people, creatures,
activities, things, etc., based upon their meanings.
■LANGUAGE: A shared symbolic system that gives individuals the ability to
communicate and negotiate meanings.
■THOUGHT: An internal dialogue that mediates individuals’ experiences
with and understandings of meanings. Individuals then externalize these
processes during social interactions.
Immediate Social Worlds
●SIGNIFICANT OTHERS:
○Those whose opinions and influences are most important to an individual’s
socialization. People continually shape their selfhood through monitoring the
reactions of their significant others.
●REFERENCE GROUPS:
○Groups--or the ideals an individual believes they represent--that the individual
associated with: gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, nationalism, religion,
profession, etc.
●THE GENERALIZED OTHER :
○The internalized audience that embodies the dominant values and expectations
of an individual’s society. When people take the role of the generalized other
they are interrogating themselves from the perspectives of others.
■Developed through the “looking glass self.”
Dramaturgy
●Symbolic/interpretive interactionists view individual and social interactions as involving
a series of performances.
○AUDIENCE: The observers.
○ROLES: The actors.
○SCRIPT: Communication.
○PROPS: Objects that convey actors’ identities and relations of power.
●Social environments have:
○FRONT STAGES where actors maintain their impressions.
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Document Summary
Anthro 139k - lecture 9 - gender and anthropological theories of performance. Reality is a sociocultural construction determined by the context in which it is practiced. Accordingly, humans are suspended in self created webs of signification. Meaning, language, and thought are core dynamics that shape selfhood, socialization, and society. Meaning: individuals think about and act towards people, creatures, activities, things, etc. , based upon their meanings. Language: a shared symbolic system that gives individuals the ability to communicate and negotiate meanings. Thought: an internal dialogue that mediates individuals" experiences with and understandings of meanings. Individuals then externalize these processes during social interactions. Those whose opinions and influences are most important to an individual"s socialization. People continually shape their selfhood through monitoring the reactions of their significant others. Groups--or the ideals an individual believes they represent--that the individual associated with: gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, nationalism, religion, profession, etc.
