Making, Untangling, and Forecasting the Future of Symbolic Interactionism

This chapter discusses Paul Rock's contribution to the theoretical development of symbolic interactionism and to the methods associated with empirical investigations informed by symbolic interactionism's analytic framework. It revolves around Rock's landmark book The Making of Symbolic Interactionism. Drawing on this text, the chapter considers Rock's account of the formative period in the original statements of symbolic interactionism and of subsequent debates informed by the critics and critical friends of symbolic interactionism. It focuses on the problematic intersection between symbolic interactionism and the social phenomenologies. It also identifies Rock's contribution to our understanding of fieldwork and, especially, to what he called the ‘pivotal strategy’ of participant observation. It also includes a discussion of the trajectory of symbolic interactionism's later and future development.