David R. Maines: Embedding Symbolic Interactionism at the Heart of Sociology

Abstract

David R. Maines was a key founder of the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction, and a champion of symbolic interactionist sociology. Maines fought against characterizations of symbolic interactionism as astructural and “subjectivist.” He was adamant that symbolic interactionism offered vital perspectives on the study of social structure and organization, and that it was compatible with a variety of research methods. He played a vital role in developing narrative sociology and bringing narrative scholarship from communication studies to sociological audiences. In this retrospective on his life and career, I detail what Maines saw as the five central features of symbolic interactionism: (1) interpretation and meaning, (2) communication, (3) temporality and process, (4) agency, and (5) dialectical thinking. I then examine four interrelated themes of Maines' sociological contributions: (1) temporality, (2) debunking myths about interactionism, (3) mesostructure, and (4) narrative sociology. A video abstract is available at https://youtu.be/YodjvXbo51Q.