Symbolic Interactionism, Inequality, and Emotions

Abstract

Emotions are central to everyday interactions. They motivate behavior, shape agency, contribute to self-control and social control, and bear the traces of systemic disadvantage. Our chapter explores the contributions of symbolic interactionism as a theoretical perspective in sociological studies of emotions. We focus on how an interactionist analysis of emotions has added immeasurably to our understanding of social interaction and, in particular, of social inequality. Not all interactionist research, including interactionist studies of emotion, focuses on inequality. However, in tracking the patterns of social interaction to their troubling consequences, we heed the advice of an early interactionist, Blumer (1969), who urged symbolic interactionist researchers to pay attention to the obdurate reality—the empirical patterns—going on around us. The obdurate reality that we observe is replete with examples of inequality and resistance in people’s ongoing social interactions. Thus, our goal is to present an overview of the territory that symbolic interaction and sociological studies of emotions share and then analyze the most challenging direction for interactionist research: understanding the reproduction of inequality.