BackStage

While I think it’s great the someone from the other side of the aisle in terms of symbolic interaction has gained editorship of Social Psychology Quarterly and, hell, I love the pictures (and some of the other changes, like the very fast turn around time):

(while not so crazy about the font or the tendency to not have the article names on the outside of the journal so I have to pull them off the shelf and look through them to find the article I need); I am really confused by the new subtitle: “The Journal of Microsociologies.”

The mission of the journal hasn’t changed much for many many years (I know, I’ve looked through all the statements from when it was Sociometry, the one year it was Social Psychology in 1978, to its current title). This mission, developing in response to the “crisis” that social psychology underwent (did you know that ASA actually disbanded the section for a few years for lack of leadership and membership?) is:

Social Psychology Quarterly publishes theoretical and empirical papers on the link between the individual and society, including the study of the relations of individuals to one another, as well as to groups, collectivities and institutions. It also includes the study of intra-individual processes insofar as they substantially influence or are influenced by social structure and process. The journal is genuinely interdisciplinary, publishing works by both sociologists and psychologists.

The aim then fits well with Sheldon Stryker’s call to return to the “fundamental insight” of sociological social psychology (see my interests for a tad more on this). The central purpose, then, is to illustrate the relation between the individual and the larger structure. How do they affect and shape one another? Again, my beloved agency and structural constraint. But, I am not sure what is micro about this? Is it the fact that often we look at individuals, selves, identities, and emotions? All things I’m interested in. At the same time, however, most of us do not just look at the micro-level. Heck, as per the mission statement, if we want to look at intrapersonal processes, it must focus on the the effect of the social structure and process on the individual.

I’ve asked many social psychologists in sociology what the hell microsociology is. And, all the professors (some of them frequently published in SPQ), can’t define it. So, like all bad researchers, I turn to Wikipedia which defines microsociology as:

one of the main branches of sociology (contrast with macrosociology and mesosociology) which concerns itself with the nature of everyday human social interactions on a small scale. At the micro level, social statuses and social roles are the most important components of social structure. It is usually based on observation rather than statistics. It is based on the philosophy of phenomenology and includes symbolic interactionism and ethnomethodology.

Yeah, so I’m not buying this definition either. In terms of SPQ, enthnomethodology rarely graces its pages. Furthermore, by far the most common method is statistical analysis. This is followed by experiments which is followed by field work (yes, I have data–statistical data–that confirms this). Anyone have a better definition?

I find calling social psychology “microsociology” objectionable. While I am concerned with the experience of the individual, I am only interested in far as it reflects the experience of a wide swath of individuals. The common experience, the way the individual writ large is affected by and affects social structure. I find the term microsociology to provide the impression that social psychologists are separate from other sociologists. It seems to suggest that we are not concerned with social structural conditions that exist across society, which couldn’t be further from the truth. For example, in this post, I discuss how Latinos/as in new destination may be able to change structural meanings. This has implications across the social structure, not just at the micro individual level (of course, there is impact there too). I find this even more disconcerting given the constant need for social psychologists to defend their field.

In his editor’s note, Gary Alan Fine comments:

Social psychology has a special challenge. Given that our colleagues perceive our specialized research programs as apart from the disciplinary heart, publication in generalist journals may be more challenging than for some in other specialties. Social Psychology Quarterly is one of the few journals in which sociological social psychologists know that their research will receive a fair hearing and an attentive audience.

I think calling ourselves microsociologists, beyond accepting it as a classification but taking it on as an identity to mark the front of our flagship journal, increases this challenge. I know of no other field that has as a prelim question: “What is social about social psychology?” Can you imagine that question appearing on a social inequality prelim? Well, what is social about social psychology is that we are concerned with the creation, the change, and the continuity (yay Cs!) of the social structure. Take an argument made by Fine himself:

“social psychology permits the examination of large-scale social issues by means of investigation of small-scale social situations” (Stolte, Fine and Cook 2001: 388).

If the purpose is often to understand larger-scale issues, how is this microsociology?