Joint Actions, Stories and Symbolic Structures: A Contribution to Herbert Blumer’s Conceptual Framework

Abstract

Despite its centrality in Blumer’s conceptual framework, the notion of joint action remains theoretically underdeveloped and empirically underutilised. To fill this void, the present article focuses on the dynamics inherent to the formation of joint action, and highlights actors’ deployment of available symbolic rules and resources for constructing the legitimising accounts that normally accompany their lines of action. The construction of such accounts, or stories, is viewed here as the prime means of reducing the intrinsic contingency of joint action and determining its content and terms as well as its direction and prospects. The article concludes by underscoring the importance of the suggested theoretical input for tapping some of the potential of Blumer’s approach, especially the one regarding its capacity to address subtle forms of power.