The Hinge: Civil Society, Group Culture, and the Interaction Order

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2014 77: 5Social Psychology QuarterlyGary Alan Fine

The Hinge: Civil Society, Group Culture, and the Interaction Order

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The Hinge: Civil Society,Group Culture, and theInteraction Order

Gary Alan Fine1

Abstract

Although often perceived as distant, social psychology and political sociology have much tooffer each other. I build upon a meso-level analysis to examine how groups provide the basisfor involvement within civil society. Erving Goffman’s concept of the interaction order provesauspicious for this analysis as it permits the examination of how action routines, organizedthrough groups, connect individuals with larger social systems. Commitments to group cul-tures—idiocultures—permit allegiance to larger social systems and help to solve the Hobbes-ian problem of how order is possible. To demonstrate the value of a meso-sociologicalapproach, I address six themes that provide for a group-centered analysis of civil society:(1) group cultures serve as commitment devices, (2) social capital and social relations provideopportunities for creating efficacy, (3) shared spaces serve as platforms for a public sphere, (4)performances permit the coordination of frames of action, (5) collective pasts create the basisfor a common future, and (6) forms of social control establish interactional stability.

Keywords

group culture, small groups, interaction order, idioculture, civil society, political sociology

After the Stanton children were put tobed, [Susan B.] Anthony and [Eliza-beth Cady] Stanton would stay up dis-cussing a speech. In her autobiogra-phy Stanton claims that the earliestmemories of her children are of theirmother and Aunt Susan sitting atthe table in the evening surroundedby papers. . . . Next morning, Anthonywould care for the children whileStanton wrote the speech. . . . AsHenry Stanton observed, ‘‘Susanstirred up the pudding, Elizabethstirred up Susan, then Susan stirredup the whole state.’’ . . . Throughoutthe 1850s, Stanton forged the ‘‘thun-derbolts’’ and Anthony deliveredthem. (Farrell 2001:234)

The occasion of the Cooley-Mead

address is a moment of consolidation:

a time when with the gift of a podium

a scholar looks backwards with pride

and regret, gazes about in hope and

doubt, and contemplates a future that is

both bright and foggy. For 40 years my

career trajectory has been firm. Over

these decades I have chosen to examine

1Northwestern University, IL, USA

Corresponding Author:Gary Alan Fine, Department of Sociology, 1810

Chicago Avenue, Northwestern University,

Evanston, IL 60208, USA.

Email: [email protected]

Social Psychology Quarterly2014, Vol. 77(1) 5–26

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the intersection of three core concepts:

culture, interaction, and structure. These

are concepts that together produce

a meso-level social psychology. This triad,

when considered together, inspired by Erv-

ing Goffman (1983), constitutes the inter-

action order. In the early 1970s, when I

began my work, culture was largely the

domain of anthropologists. Interactionstood outside the mainstream of sociology,

promoted by oppositional communities

including symbolic interactionists, ethno-

methodologists, and sociolinguists. Struc-

ture was the recognized mainstream of

the discipline, relied on by both functional-

ists and critical theorists, but was distant

from the core of social psychology.But this was my agenda: to combine

these three elements, creating an inte-

grated sociology, and to do so through

the lens of the small group. I hoped to

develop the approach to sociological social

psychology that had been pioneered by

Muzafer Sherif in his Robbers’ Cave

experiment with preadolescent boys and

by Erving Goffman in his observations of

patients at St. Elizabeth Hospital. These

were our first two Cooley-Mead Award

recipients, but equally influential was my

graduate mentor Robert Freed Bales, the

sixth recipient, and my undergraduate advi-

sor Jane Piliavin, the thirtieth recipient. I

believe that the meso-level of analysis—the

realm of ongoing, historicized, and self-

reflective group interaction—is essential

for understanding the social order. We

must connect the micro and the macro in

a way that does justice to each. A hinge,

my metaphorical title, connects two realms

that, while semiautonomous, are linked

and never independent. In this I adopt socio-

logical miniaturism, the approach that John

Stolte, Karen Cook, and I developed (Stolte,Fine, and Cook 2001), which asserted that

the claims of microsociology serve as an

interpretive framework through which

a grounded, action-oriented structural

analysis is possible. Culture, understood as

a form of shared, local, and collectively

understood action, is at the heart of how

social order is possible.

I apply my emphasis on microcultures

and those identities that flow from group

embeddedness to understanding the orga-

nization of civil society. A decade ago

Brooke Harrington and I (Fine and Har-

rington 2004) argued for the salience of

‘‘tiny publics;’’ I extend this perspective

today. With the increased attention to

neighborhood effects (Sampson 2012),

networks of allegiance (McPherson,

Smith-Lovin, and Brashears 2006), com-

munity organizations (Eliasoph 2012;

Putnam 2000), and sites of affiliation

(Goldfarb 2006), social psychologists can

draw upon a body of research, often seen

as outside our specialty, to address how

political process and community organi-

zation depend upon the interaction order,

cemented within ongoing relations. I

reject a political sociology that erases

microcultures and contribute to one that

realizes that elites, conformers, the mar-

ginal, and the resistant all depend on

the meaning, the social relations, and

the structural possibilities provided by

local communities.

INTERACTIONAL POLITICS

Underlying the development of the meso-

level analysis of group culture is Erving

Goffman’s ‘‘interaction order,’’ a basis,

he suggests, for examining social systems

comparatively and historically. As his

ASA presidential address was composed

while terminally ill, Goffman’s text leaves

analytic gaps and is largely devoid of

empirical cases, but he makes the crucial

argument that ‘‘at the very center of

interaction life is the cognitive relation

we have with those present before us,

without which relationship our activity,

behavioral and verbal, could not be mean-

ingfully organized’’ (Goffman 1983:4).

This relation is not generated within the

6 Social Psychology Quarterly 77(1)




immediate encounter, but depends on our

social memory. In other words, interac-

tion is based on the mental recognition

of how the past affects the present.

Because successful interaction is a model

for the present, Goffman argued that soci-

ety is built through a tacit agreement to

create orderliness. As a result, trust is

generated through the establishment ofcomforting interactional routines (Misztal

2001). He asserts that those who focus on

interaction regimes have the tools with

which to address social organizations

from the dyad to the globe and from the

bedroom to the State, a point consistent

with Collins’s (1981) description of how

microstructures permit the developmentof macrostructural understandings.

Following Rawls (1987), who sees in

Goffman’s writing a linkage among levels

of analysis, this is the ‘‘interaction order

sui generis.’’ Rawls’s ‘‘imperatives that

are not structurally defined’’ are the orga-

nizing principles that derive from local

commitments. Goffman’s concern in the

essay, as in much of his writing, is to

examine occasioned encounters in which

the parties are not in extended, meaning-

ful contact. He emphasizes fleeting

encounters, such as those between clerks

and customers, while pointing to the

centrality of what he terms ‘‘deeper’’ rela-

tions that depend on biographic aware-

ness and what I have termed idiocultures

(Fine 1979), what also have been calledgroup cultures and microcultures. While

there are nuances in these terms (McFeat

1974), in this analysis I will use them syn-

onymously. However, as a general frame-

work, I follow the definition of idioculture

that I presented 25 years ago:

Idioculture consists of a system ofknowledge, beliefs, behaviors, andcustoms shared by members of aninteracting group to which memberscan refer and that serve as the basisof further interaction. Members

recognize that they share experiences,and these experiences can be referredto with the expectation that they willbe understood by other members,thus being used to construct a socialreality for the participants. (Fine1987:125)

Central to this definition is that cul-

ture is linked to interaction and affiliation

and that the historical and self-referential

quality of the cultural elements is crucial.

In this perspective culture is not primar-

ily cognitive, but is revealed through

behavior.

In extending the construct of the inter-

action order with its cultural traditions to

established social relations I combine

Goffman’s recognition of how interaction

creates practices and routines with the

recognition, too often missing within

micro-analytic studies of interpersonal

relations, that meanings are often situ-

ated within (relatively) stable group cul-

tures. Families, clubs, teams, and cliques

provide such examples. Shared aware-

ness produces continuing social relations.

Collective memories are essential if indi-

viduals are to believe that they are

a shared public that has common interest

or linked fate (Dawson 1995). As Zeruba-

vel (1997) reminds us, thinking is neither

individual nor universal—it is communal.

Collective memory is a fundamental prin-

ciple of social order. Strauss (1978) and

Maines (1977) properly point to negotia-

tion as a tool for building ongoing, flexible

but durable relations in organizations as

well as in families. As they shape the

future, negotiations occur within a context

of joint pasts. The future as an interaction

order depends upon a knowable past

(Fine 2007; Tavory and Eliasoph 2013).

A meso-level analysis that recognizes

the interaction order and the power of

group cultures is a bulwark of civil soci-

ety. If microsociology is to address public

engagement, understanding how civil

The Hinge: Civil Society, Group Culture, and the Interaction Order 7




systems are built or are undercut is

crucial. As sociologists, we begin with

Thomas Hobbes who, it is said, perhaps

to his surprise, provided our discipline’s

core challenge. Hobbes proposed that with-

out limits on rival personal interests, the

security necessary for routine tasks would

be absent. Although in Leviathan Hobbes

never refers to ‘‘social order,’’ his problem

has become ours. Hobbes (1651) writes:

Whatsoever therefore is consequent toa time of Warre, where every man isEnemy to every man . . . whereinmen live without other security, thanwhat their own strength, and theirown invention shall furnish themwithall. In such condition, there is . . .no Society; and which is worst of all,continuall feare, and danger of violentdeath; And the life of man, solitary,poore, nasty, brutish, and short.

In such dire circumstances, how can

orchards be fruitful, libraries filled, vil-

lages peaceable, and people die in their

beds? Hobbes’s solution to a world of

uncoordinated interests is a world of con-

trol. Authority is given to the Leviathan,

an ‘‘artificial’’ or corporate person. Society

is either organized from above or from

within. Hobbes dismisses the latter, posing

a world of solitary self-interest against

a world of central power and surveillance.

He poses a choice without a middle: indi-

viduals and institutions lack self-govern-

ing social stability. But democracy exists

and self-determination is possible because

of this middle: a world of tiny publics.This meso-middle is the hinge, the

linkage of external structures and per-

sonal interest. Order can be built horizon-

tally, and not only vertically. Even vertical

control depends on the existence of groups

at each level of authority. Oppression

relies on interactional routines as much

as democracy. In contrast to Hobbesian

red-in-tooth-and-claw individualism, local-

ism and social relations contribute to

security and routine. The first place to

search for a haven from behavioral and

epistemic turmoil is in the small communi-

ties in which one participates (Hallett

2010).

The intersection of micro, meso, and

macro creates an integrated sociology

(Turner 2012). This cultural sociology is

simultaneously social psychology and

political sociology. In speaking of the devel-

opment of a civil society, I reach beyond

a narrowly defined political analysis, recog-

nizing that individuals are committed to

their communities. They do this through

social relations and through the emotional

linkages that flow from these relations, as

in the case of Elizabeth Stanton and Susan

B. Anthony, described previously.

Affiliation need not stop at the bound-

ary of interaction, but can extend to

other groups with similar character. We

often consider ourselves to be members

of a set of groups, in effect creating

a social category. Once this affiliation is

established, actions (voting, contributing,

or demonstrating), tied to interaction,

generate broader commitments. Once

benefiting a tiny public, such connections

are subsequently tied to a desire to shape

a ‘‘good society’’ (Bellah et al. 1991). But

good societies depend on good groups:

groups that are morally virtuous and

groups that are effective. This social

imaginary is based in a belief that the

strong ties of family and friendship can

be extended, creating voluntary commu-

nities. In being linked to group cultures,

people believe that they belong to scenes

(Silver, Clark, and Yanez 2010). This is

true even if the community has internal

splits or disputed boundaries. Conflict is

as evident as consensus, and dispute

may be an expected part of a group cul-

ture (Weeks 2003) as long as participants

feel that there are resources or norms

that are worth disputing.

Studies of civil society often ignore

group interaction in favor of individual





preferences or structural pressures. As

Walzer (1992:107) recognizes, ‘‘Civil soci-

ety itself is sustained by groups much

smaller than the demos or the working

class or the mass of consumers or the

nation. All these are necessarily plural-

ized as they are incorporated. They

become part of the fabric of family,

friends, comrades, and colleagues, where

people are connected to one another andmade responsible for one another.’’ Soci-

ety requires a mesh of groups (Back and

Polisar 1983; Cohen and Arato 1992).

Social media with its strands of ‘‘friends’’

reveals the importance of affiliative ties,

even if these ties never involve face-to-

face interaction, once considered the

‘‘gold standard’’ of social psychology.In this article I address six concepts

that provide a group-centered analysis of

civil society, each linked to idiocultures

or microcultures: (1) commitment, (2)

social capital, (3) place, (4) performance,

(5) collective pasts, and (6) control. Affili-

ation, relations, space, action, memory,

and power are hinges of a self-referential

interaction order that connects the person

to society. I begin with the linkage of self

and others, move to stages of action, and

conclude with the creation of constraining

expectations. For society to thrive, people

must care, act in concert, and willingly

accept limits on action. With these in

place, life need not be solitary, poor,

nasty, brutish, or short. Civic life prospers

when interaction orders flourish.

Idioculture and Commitment

A local sociology starts with affiliation

and the commitments that public selves

entail. In a world in which we recognize

that we depend upon others, lasting ties

are essential. Civil engagement stems

from an interaction order that presumes

the possibility of reciprocal sharing

through common identities and common

moralities (Greene 2013). As Fligstein

(2001) writes, identities can be mobilized

by those with the social skills to create

local orders. We help those whom we con-

sider situated within the boundaries of

our community. This explains the pres-

ence of barn-raisings and comparable

forms of agricultural cooperation (Gal-

braith 1964; Harper 2001; Vickers 1994),

recognizing that those within local and

committed communities hold an expecta-

tion of help, given and received. But

even in smaller spaces, such as the house-

hold of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, help

given and received can make all the dif-

ference. As Richard Sennett (2012)

argues, cooperation is a force that has

the potential to build society. ‘‘Favor

banks,’’ in which personal services are

traded, operate smoothly in circumstan-

ces in which micro-credit is exchanged.

We are the kind of people who aid others

in our social surroundings.

Definitions of the community, often

informed by local institutions such as

churches or schools, bolster this belief.

We find similar aid in ethnic self-help

organizations in which individuals or

families contribute to a fund that is

loaned as needed (Mitchell 1978; Nee

and Nee 1973). This has been institution-

alized in the form of micro-credit associa-

tions, transformed from communal-help

agencies into banks making tiny loans.

While the money lent through these

banks comes from outside of the commu-

nity through supportive nongovernmen-

tal organizations (NGOs), banks may

require gatherings of borrowers to pro-

vide mutual support (Sanyal 2009). Such

a system operates through the charity of

small numbers, tied to a belief in reciproc-

ity both as a moral requirement, as an

expectation of mutual exchange, andbecause of the power of conformity.

Groups transform collective concern into

a powerfully held and publically acknowl-

edged value. These tiny publics become

collaborative circles (Corte 2013; Farrell





2001). Perhaps the origin of reciprocity is

based in self-interest, but commitment to

group life quickly takes priority. Affilia-

tion becomes a virtue and, when publicly

enacted, leads to acceptance.

Even in moments of dispute, affiliation

tempers conflict. Ellickson (1991) empha-

sizes the prevalence of order without law.

By this he means that individuals settledisputes without resorting to external

control, even when their interests differ.

The negotiation of divergent interests

of neighboring farmers and ranchers

reveals this process. Despite incompatible

desires, ongoing relationships hold sway

and are treated as too valuable to breach.

The commitment of the group to its con-tinuation protects against rupture, lead-

ing to civil negotiations, a model for all

politics. Current negotiations build upon

past negotiations, creating a history of

adjustments. Of course, negotiations can

fail and lasting conflicts occur when indi-

viduals draw on different pieces of the

past or on different models of negotiation.These may include unresolved grievan-

ces, unreciprocated benefits, or competing

practices of dispute resolution. History

is potentially unstable as actors are

replaced and new cohorts replace old

(Whittier 1997); in consequence, patterns

of micro-relations that had once been

established must occasionally be revised.The memory of a group’s past and the

commitment to it permit disagreements

to be coordinated within a broader social

organization. We need no single all-

powerful Leviathan if we embrace a duty

to maintain stability. With group affilia-

tion as a guiding principle of collective

life, affection can work as well as disci-

pline. Soft communities operate as effec-

tively as hard (Fine 2013). Societies are

organized through group coordination at

the level of the local and at levels with

broader authority, establishing translocal

order and responding to dissent and resis-

tance. While coordination is essential for

state governance, at each level interac-

tion routines are to be found. We find

groups all the way up.In a different sense from Benedict

Anderson (1991), I speak of imagined

communities. Anderson examines state

systems, focusing on the creation and

the impact of national literatures and lan-guages. However, micro-communities are

imagined as well and this has greater

interactional effects than for those com-

munities that are built upon fixed texts.

While Anderson properly addresses the

role of the imagined community in linking

individuals to systems of governance, it is

potent because citizens see other citizensas being like them. Affiliation is most pow-

erful when neighbors serve as stand-ins

for all citizens. Ritual events such as cer-

emonies or parades (Lane 1981; Warner

1959) create idiocultures that are treated

as national cultures, just as degradation

ceremonies (Garfinkel 1956) use separa-

tion from a community to support a sharedpolitics.

Tiny publics are the building blocks

from which political order is possible

through threads of emotional entrain-

ment (Collins 2004). If, as Eliasoph

(1998) argues, group cultures can create

a commitment to apathy, that apathy

exists because members believe, given

their shared experiences, that their role

as citizens makes no further demands.

But inevitably group belongingness is

a model for societal belongingness.

The person without connections—the

stranger, the hermit, or the detached—

rejects meaningful participation in civil

society. Participation depends on the exis-

tence of established social relations.

Further, categorizing one’s interaction

partners into a named group creates the

basis of belonging. The salience of group

membership in identity work harkens

back to Durkheim’s ([1912] 1965) empha-

sis on collective representations that

bolster social participation. The Iowa





symbolic interactionists (Kuhn and

McPartland 1954) who developed the

Twenty Statements test emphasize that

individuals define themselves through

action groups: families, clubs, or workpla-

ces. We recognize ourselves not only

through Charles Horton Cooley’s

‘‘looking-glass self’’ but through looking-

glass communities. Identity work (Snow

and Anderson 1987) emphasizes the

salience of the group in which performan-

ces occur. One does not simply have an

identity, but has an identity in light of

a bounded public.

Idioculture and Social Capital

Affiliation becomes real through engage-

ment, a skill that depends on social capi-

tal. By social capital, I refer to the ability

of individuals to create a web of support-

ive friends and acquaintances. We seethis in the early feminist movement of

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B.

Anthony, but also in engaged communi-

ties of all types. Following Portes (1998),

social capital depends upon sociability.

Although the social capital approach

has a lengthy history, its contemporary

prominence developed from the insight

of James Coleman (1990) who treated

social capital as a strategy by which

individuals maximized their interests,

building community by creating dense

networks. Less tied to rational choice

arguments, but equally as influential in

emphasizing a meso-level analysis, Rob-

ert Putnam (2000) has doggedly asserted

that a robust civil sphere depends

upon the prevalence of strong relations

and supportive institutions. Putnam’s

(1995:167) definition of civic engagement,

‘‘trust, norms, and networks that can

improve the efficiency of society by facili-

tating coordinated action,’’ emphasizes

the connection between social capital

and commitment to local domains. Put-

nam frets about the decline of this capital,

but what he emphasizes throughout

Bowling Alone is that established groups

or small organizations are weakening,

leading to declining interest in civic par-

ticipation generally, a reality that has

continued and is linked to class-linked

social relations (Petev 2013). He points

to the decline of organizations such as

the Parent-Teacher Association to exem-plify this decline. While other institutions

may have replaced the PTA, Putnam’s

point is that society depends on an ecology

of groups and that idioculture supports

forms of social capital that undergird suc-

cessful societies. In their analysis of reli-

gion Putnam and Campbell (2010) argue

for the essential place of churches. Follow-ing those who recognize the local cultures

of congregations, Putnam suggests that

the shared sense of belonging and the effi-

cacy and networking that this creates

makes religious gatherings powerful for

social cohesion. While organized groups

are surely important, this emphasis

ignores the less formal, often nameless,groups that continue to flourish. An abun-

dance of groups, even outside formal

organizations, reveals a healthy civil

society.

Through intersecting groups, social

capital builds expansive networks, creat-

ing the possibility of organizational

recruitment through who one knows and

how one knows them. As is true in the

Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist movement,

groups recruit through networks, build-

ing on established relations and differen-

tial association (Snow, Zurcher, and

Ekland-Olson 1980). Only later does pub-

licity bolster personal, direct recruitment.

While not denying the importance of

resources, movements thrive if they

have close-knit supporters, even if these

local chapters have only occasional link-

ages with groups of greater power and

authority. Groups are motivated through

the social capital of participants, poten-

tially generating commitment to costly





action (Della Porta 1988) and overcoming

the collective action problem (Olson

1965). Sageman (2008) speaks of a leader-

less jihad in the post–9/11 era, arguing

that terrorism consists of ‘‘informal local

groups . . . conceiving and executing

from the bottom up.’’ Who needs Bin

Laden in a world of Facebook and hookah

bars? Any clique can be a violent cell. Of

course, it is not only terrorist cells that

are at issue. Many revolutions and insur-

rections are provoked by partisan bands

no larger than a small group. These

groups have the power of conviction, the

ability to move swiftly, and, because of

their tight boundaries, are resistant to

state surveillance.

Through their social relations, small-

scale networks build solidarity through

grievance frames that larger units cannot

easily generate, overcoming fears of retri-

bution by state actors (Gamson, Fireman,

and Rytina 1982; Gould 1993; Pfaff 1996).

Commitment may be so powerful that

even failure does not produce disillusion-

ment (Summers-Effler 2010).

The analysis of efficacy provides social

capital with its most consequential empir-

ical grounding. Central to this concept is

the neighborhood effects literature in

which researchers of urban poverty, oth-

erwise at some remove from the examina-

tion of small group cultures, recognize

that characteristics of local communities

determine how social systems are orga-

nized through collective efficacy, linked

to the presence of social capital. This

approach emphasizes that the contextual

features of an urban interaction order

are crucial for analyzing the organization

of inequality (Quillian and Pager 2001;

Sampson, Morenoff, and Gannon-Rowley

2002). Sampson and his colleagues claim

that broad structural forces are mediated

through the lifeworlds of particular com-

munities with their distinctive cultures,

linked to local institutions that encourage

or retard the development of collective

action and meso-level social control. In

other words, collective efficacy develops

from local conditions (Sampson, Morenoff,

and Earls 1999; Sampson and Rauden-

bush 1999). This research tradition

challenges the view that all poor neigh-

borhoods are alike because of their struc-

tural similarities and recognizes that

community feeling can buffer external

threats (Fischer 1982).

As valuable as this model of urban life

is, it demands attention to the specifics of

how historical processes affect neighbor-

hoods. Japonica Brown-Saracino (2009)

demonstrates how gentrifiers depend on

the backstory—real and imagined—of

the neighborhood that they are in the pro-

cess of transforming. While the micro-

structural perspective on neighborhood

effects is insightful in recognizing neigh-

borhood diversity, this research tradition

often downplays the processual how of

local effects. The neighborhoods effectsliterature requires an urban ethnography

to demonstrate how social capital oper-

ates not only in principle, but in practice.

For instance, as Harding (2010) points

out, the dynamics of collective efficacy

can lead to within-group control, preserv-

ing social relations, or can create preemp-

tive violence between groups, groundedon the defense of turf. Social capital is

not merely an idea of social relations,

but a force that aggregates skills made

concrete within group contexts.

Idioculture and Place

As spaces are everywhere, communities

can be as well. This explains the ethno-

graphic trope of the corner as the setting

for community (Anderson 1979; Liebow

1967; Whyte 1943). As Grannis (2009)argues, the ecological features of neigh-

borhoods affect the social relations and

local cultures that develop within them.

Streets, cul-de-sacs, parks, and buildings

make meetings or gatherings more or





less likely. These material structures

must not be dismissed. Their obdurate

reality permits the arrangement of

groups, scenes, and interaction patterns

(Fine 1992).

Ultimately group cultures require

spaces for shared action, providing dra-

maturgical moments that create a commu-

nal history. Places and scenes permit the

public display of commitment and connec-

tion and, by generalization of the local,create commitment and connection to

socially and geographically extended sys-

tems. Groups are constrained if they

lack places in which interaction is possi-

ble. Politics, whether supportive of or

resistant to the status quo, require loca-

tions in which people come together in

common cause. In this I draw on Gold-farb’s (2006) analysis of the intimate

spaces in which civil society is organized.

The sociology of small things depends

upon a sociology of small places. Here

the kitchen table, whether that of Eliza-

beth Cady Stanton or Lech Walesa, is

the center of political life. For Goldfarb

it is the interaction order of places thatcreates shared perspectives and common

purposes. Goldfarb (2006:15) places the

hearth on a stage, asserting, ‘‘When

friends and relatives met in their kitch-

ens, they presented themselves to each

other in such a way that they defined

the situation in terms of an independent

frame rather than that of officialdom.’’While the existence of these gathering

points has been noticed in the creation

of the modern public sphere, their posi-

tion in an interaction regime must be

emphasized. If, as Calhoun (2001) argues,

civil society depends on the self-organiza-

tion of social relations, then the ability of

embedded small groups to gather is cen-tral, no matter whether they are explicitly

politically self-conscious. Could a vibrant

public sphere have existed without the

coffeehouse (Back and Polisar 1983; Hab-

ermas 1989), the lodge (Koselleck 1988;

Levtzion 2002), the club (Agulhon 1982;

Amann 1975), the saloon (Bell 1983;

LeMasters 1975; May 2001), or the salon

(Giesen 2001)? Today urban daycare cen-

ters provide parents with information to

obtain family resources that their ownlimited knowledge does not permit (Small

2009). These nodes of talk permit partici-

pants to recognize the larger structures

that shape them. Spaces in which tiny

publics challenge and debate provide

the basis of a civil culture. Political dis-

course occurs in settings where argument

is legitimate, even desired (Emirbayerand Sheller 1999; Ikegami 2000; Mische

and White 1998). Ann Mische’s (2008)

research on Brazilian youth politics dem-

onstrates that it is not grievance or ideol-

ogy as such that creates action, but the

ability of a network of locally based

groups to connect. Spaces in which indi-

viduals gather, either through a focusedinteraction ritual (e.g., an award cere-

mony) (Collins 1981) or through circulat-

ing discussions (e.g., the archetypal

cocktail party) (Riesman, Potter, and

Watson 1960) generate the recognition

of community.

Calhoun (1982:149–50) analyzes the

development of radicalism and revolt in

nineteenth-century British artisan com-

munities, which were facing the strains

of the Industrial Revolution. This work

demonstrates the value of recognizing

the meso-level as the foundation of collec-

tive action. Calhoun argues that a close-

knit community can generate a sense of

injustice and awareness of techniques of

resistance. As he writes, ‘‘These move-

ments were largely based on the social

foundations of local communities. The

people they mobilized were knit together

through personal bonds within these

communities much more than they were

unified by class. As such movements

attempted to go beyond local communities

in their mobilization or objects, they foun-

dered.’’ In place of class consciousness,





Calhoun asserts the centrality of group

consciousness, tied to place. Radicalism

depended on preserving traditional social

relations.

Tilly (2006) makes a similar argument

in recognizing the importance of transac-

tions within a bounded public, rather

than an approach that emphasized per-

sonal dispositions or structures of institu-

tions (Gould 2003). These movements

depend on the recognition of oppression

in spaces in which collective action is pos-

sible, even as they make adjustments

to the power of an authoritarian state

(Chua 2012). Repertoires of action, of

which the weapons of the weak described

by James Scott (1985) form a part, are not

merely abstract techniques of resistance

but emerge from action spaces in which

close-knit communities fight for their

own preservation. Yet, while these theo-

rists refer to groups, chains, relations, or

clusters, they do not explore the micro-

cultures that lead to the perception of

common interests and, like Tilly,

retreat from the interaction order to

describe durable categories of actors,

less grounded in local perspectives.

Civil society operates not just in

domains that are explicitly political, but

in ostensibly apolitical locations as well.

These constitute ‘‘third places’’ as defined

by Ray Oldenberg (1989). We are familiar

with ‘‘Slim’s Table,’’ made famous by

Mitchell Duneier (1992). At a table in

Hyde Park’s Valois Cafeteria a group of

black and white men talked about the

issues of the day, overcoming racial

boundaries. They relied on community

and built that community in their talk.

As Duneier (1992:159) reports, ‘‘In com-

ing to a cafeteria in the integrated Hyde

Park district, some of these men are

expressing a desire to participate in the

larger, more comprehensive society. . . .

The wider society . . . is a vehicle for

them to express their own civility.’’ Slim’s

table provides a hinge that transforms

these marginal actors into citizens. More

explicitly political is Walsh’s (2003) obser-

vation of the daily discourse among

a group of men in a small coffee shop.

These men process the events of the day

through their generally conservative

world view; their continuing interaction

emphasizes that political beliefs are

shaped by and are responsive to the pla-

ces that neighbors gather (Eliasoph

2012; Lichterman 2005).

As their methodology demands, eth-

nographers are place-based, depicting

places linked to group life. This is true

of the many observations of gang life

(Venkatesh 2008), simultaneously aes-

thetic, normative, and political. Erickson

(2009), describing a neighborhood restau-

rant, discovered that despite it being

a place of business, a group of regulars

care for each other and for the staff. The

same happens in beauty salons (Furman

1997), baseball bleachers (Swyers 2010),

and opera loges (Benzecry 2011), odd but

real sites for revealing mutual care,

becoming a public sphere of a sort.

Beyond being places in which individuals

debate, these third places permit the for-

mation of communities of common pur-

pose. They are Tocqueville’s ‘‘minute com-

munities,’’ social orders that develop from

spatial propinquity. Tocqueville ([1835]

1966:232) presents an example, perhaps

apocryphal, from his travels, ‘‘If some

obstacle blocks the public road, halting

the circulation of traffic, the neighbors

at once form a deliberative body; this

improvised assembly produces an execu-

tive authority which remedies the trouble

before anyone has thought of the possibil-

ity of some previously constituted author-

ity beyond that of those concerned.’’ Our

relations with those who surround us con-

firm that our own opinions are worth-

while and, if threatened, should be

defended.

The more formal organization of public

events such as community gatherings and





town meetings creates spaces for dialogue

(Baiocchi 2003; Bryan 2004). The town

meeting is the archetypal form in which

social relations are transformed into polit-

ical involvement as a consequence of

a shared environment. It is not that all

agree on the appropriate action—often

disagreements have lengthy afterlives

and participants may be known for con-

trary views—but all are engaged in the

same civic project (Deener 2012). While

such spaces of action may create conflict

and disagreement, by virtue of a shared

presence participants assume that others

share history, emotional concern, and

a sense of belonging. Tiny publics provide

the basis of civil society when settings are

established in which politics is discussed

and enacted (Fraser 1992). Commitment,

linked to identity, provides part of the

process by which meso-level identifica-

tions create shared action, but for action

to be possible the interaction order must

bring actors together in places that ratify

the significance of their copresence

(Campos-Castillo and Hitlin 2013; Zhao

2003). Of course, technology changes the

rules of copresence. Postal systems and

subsequent telegraphic and telephonic

systems provide opportunities for a type

of copresence that does not require the

physical proximity of bodies. Computer-

mediated communities, especially social

media, are perhaps not so different from

mail except by being more temporally

insistent and more expansive in scope.

Cyber culture permits coordinated action,

recognizing that space need not be geo-

graphical, but can be communicative.

Idioculture and Performance

Once we gather, what to do? We act, mobi-

lized in common cause. A meso-sociologi-

cal theory of group culture is a theory

that is not in the head, but on the stage.

Returning to our opening example, it

was not sufficient for Stanton and

Anthony to gather in Stanton’s kitchen,

but they had to arrange stage performan-

ces in which Anthony could move the

crowd with her passionate speeches.

This approach builds on the sociological

tradition of seeing action as a basis of

social organization, treating skilled per-

formers as central to the reproduction of

social relations (Fligstein 2001; Giddens

1984). While recognizing logics and affect,

logics and affect gain meaning through

action, and especially interaction (Hallett

2010; Hallett and Ventresca 2006). An

interaction order is a domain of perfor-

mance, a world of rituals and responses,not mere reflex.

Civil society depends on individuals

sharing common perspectives or, alterna-

tively, opposing each other in rivalrous

dispute (or an ambivalent mix). As I

describe in my research on high school

debate teams (Fine 2000), political

systems often depend on groups that per-

ceive themselves in long-standing opposi-

tion. Structured contention is part of

democratic decision making, and the

breaking of conventions of group debate

can potentially spark civil strife. It is not

sufficient to feel that one belongs to a group

through affiliation, the linkages that come

with social capital, or sharing a space, but

one must act so as to reaffirm this belong-

ingness publicly. While mass rituals are

set by states (or by groups that represent

state systems), these mass events are com-

prised of groups that merge, creating a grid

of groups. Singles may attend rallies,

marches, protests, or events, but often do

so with friends and acquaintances (Aveni

1977; McPhail 1991). What appears to be

a mass is a collection of groups, forming

an evanescent, ‘‘wispy community’’ (Fine

and Van den Scott 2011). In times of disas-

ter, moments that depend on immediate

response (Shibutani 1966), such action

platforms emerge as citizens search for

common meaning and social support. As

Xu (2009) describes in examining the





aftermath of the massive Sichuan earth-

quake of 2008, groups quickly mobilized

to aid the needy, and these nodes of action

stood apart from the official state response.

They created an intimate culture through

the aid that they provided to devastated

locales. Social relations healed society

when the fabric was rent. At symbolic

moments, people, acting together, reveal,

forge, and refine allegiances.

The salience of performance as a politi-

cal act is evident in the meso-analysis of

social movements. At times a group can

become, in effect, a stage troupe; actors

gain confidence from their audiences.

This is evident in instances in which emo-

tional support bolsters high-risk activism,

as Goodwin (1997) described in the case of

the Huk rebellion in the Philippines. Con-

sciousness-raising in women’s groups in

the 1970s served a similar end, providing

collective support for performances of

gender that might otherwise be rejected

(Cassell 1977). Staged high school

drunk-driving tragedies, such as ‘‘Every

15 Minutes,’’ provide a performance con-

text in which adolescents can feel those

dangers of which adults believe they

should be aware (Miller 2012). Shared

communal emotions generate such

moments of collective effervescence (Dur-

kheim [1912] 1965). The challenge is to

sustain this emotional attachment in the

face of interactional routines and socialcontrol (Bartkowski 2000; Collins 2004).

The challenge of stoking emotion is

especially evident in the constructed

rituals of oppositional groups. Although

much social movement scholarship

examines the relationship between the

movement and the state, between

the movement and the individual, or the

search for resources among organizations,

movements depend on the willingness of

actors to perform opposition. Movements

are effective tools of revolt and reform if

they can galvanize supporters to demon-

strate that support to others through

action (Freedman and Fraser 1966).

Given their desire to shape public percep-

tions, social movement organizations,

more than most groupings, depend upon

the performance of passion to generate

commitment. While movements can beextensive, often they are organized

through interlocking groups, cells, or

chapters (Lofland and Jamison 1984).

This intimacy makes the behavioral dem-

onstration of political desire more power-

ful in that the performance occurs in front

of others with whom the performer has

a salient relation.To the extent that movements are com-

prised of local groupings (Gerlach and

Hine 1970), they can have distinctive cul-

tures, resources, and leadership, produc-

ing variable ideologies or outcomes

(Andrews et al. 2010; Reger 2002). One

group may look quite different from

others that are ostensibly similar, a diver-

gence that is evident in groups as diverse

as cells of the Communist Party of Amer-

ica, Tea Party branches, or chapters of

Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Depend-

ing on the ability of a central force to coor-

dinate action or institute surveillance, the

cultural or ideological relations among

movement groups or service organiza-

tions may be tight or loosely coupled.

For a movement to grow, become insti-

tutionally stable, and cement allegiance,

the public announcement of commitment

by participants is essential. In this way

individuals become part of a community

and the community can rely on them to

create public pressure. The performance

of solidarity helps groups transcend the

free rider problem (Olson 1965) by having

the performance and reactions to it bol-

ster the actor’s core identity.

From separate tight-knit groups an

effective widespread organization creates

a transcendent culture, creating perfor-

mance points at rallies, conferences, or

committees. These events establish

cross-cutting connections where people





can act together (Robnett 1996; Whyte

1974). McAdam (1988) writes of ‘‘Free-

dom High’’ as an integral component of

the Civil Rights Movement. He refers to

efforts by organizers of the Mississippi

Freedom Summer project to build cohe-

sion through communal activities, such

as classes, parties, and discussions. Polit-

ical leftists sponsored camps and joint

activities that fostered a congenial per-

spective, such as Unity House in the Cats-

kills. The goal was to make Marxism

a ‘‘way of life’’ and ‘‘a movement of fami-

lies’’ (Mishler 1999:2). A similar sen-

sibility was evident in the Ku Klux

Klan, recognizing the fiery entertainment

of witnessing cross burnings as building

cohesion (Blee 1992:167). Camps for sur-

vivalists also promote sociable action

amid guns and apocalyptic narratives

(Mitchell 2002). Each movement reflects

a commitment to performative democracy

by sponsoring action and audience in

pushing for social change.

Francesca Polletta (2002) suggests

that focused meetings and the narratives

that are embedded within them build

organizations. Meetings are more effec-

tive vectors for action than are amor-

phous gatherings. They provide struc-

tures for discourse and for decisions

(Schwartzman 1989). Gibson’s (2012)

exemplary case study of committee dis-

course during the American government

response to the Cuban missile crisis

reveals just how powerful the performan-

ces around a table can be in setting a gov-

ernment on a path to war or peace (Janis

1972). Here was a moment in which

group discussion reverberated beyond

walls of the room. By performing locally,

responding to each other’s concerns, the

participants mattered globally as other

committees in Havana and Moscow

judged these outcomes through their

own discussions.

Whether we examine powerful decision

makers or those who counter those

decisions, the performance of one’s belief

and the practice of persuasion is a neces-

sary path by which groups create or

retard change. This local practice creates

choices said to be those of ‘‘society’’ writ

large.

Idioculture and Collective Memory

Central to the mediated relationship of

citizens and the State is the role of shared

memories. Olick (1999) describes two

cultures of memory and in this he distin-

guishes between collected memories,

commonly held memories of many indi-

viduals, and collective memories, which

are memories that ‘‘belong’’ to institu-

tions. He distinguishes between parallel

micro-memories and macro-memories

that operate as social facts, often backed

by institutional support. Olick (1999:

333) writes, ‘‘Two different concepts of

collective memory compete—one refers

to the aggregation of socially framed

individual memories and one refers to col-

lective phenomena sui generis.’’ In

attempting to connect these two, he

ignores meso-level spaces of memory.

Olick is not alone in posing a choice

between the micro and the macro in the

creation of nationalism and state history

(Brubaker and Cooper 2000; Spillman

1997). In examining the establishment of

German national memory and how that

memory shifts, as Olick does, it is impor-

tant to recall that power does not reside

in an unpeopled state, but that certain

state actors make moments of memory

salient and that groups of citizens in their

interactions judge whether the rhetorical

claims are proper. Individuals connect

to history through group discussions,

supported by interaction orders. While

individuals are the keepers of personal

memory as recall is lodged in the brain,

and while institutional systems provide

for the material storage and ritual conse-

cration of memory (Schudson 1989),





memory becomes part of identity as

embraced and used by communities of

recall. Thus, it is the fact that groups

attend and meet at political events, such

as the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention,

attended by Elizabeth Cady Stanton,

Lucretia Mott, and Frederick Douglas.

This gathering gave rise to the organiza-

tion of the ‘‘Ultras’’ in which Stanton

and Mott participated, providing a struc-

ture for the subsequent involvement of

Susan B. Anthony.

National holidays and the constructed

memories that stand behind them become

real in part because families or friends

attend fireworks celebrations (Santino

1994). Successful holidays bring people

together with a mandate to embrace fam-

ily (Thanksgiving), faith (Easter, Pass-

over, Ramadan), age (Halloween), or

nation (Independence Day). These are

not occasions that individuals celebrate

nor are they occasions whose celebration

is wholly collective (despite large gather-

ings, services, or broadcasts), but they

gain power from an in-gathering of

acquaintances. This is demonstrated pow-erfully in Bronner’s (2011) analysis of

how local Jewish communities bond and

express their commitment to religious

practice and to each other by building

Sukkot huts. These huts represent shel-

ters in the wilderness, but, as Bronner

emphasizes, their construction and their

sharing for the weeklong holiday, includ-ing eating and sleeping in the huts, bol-

ster micro-communities in a way that con-

nects to the community’s past as well as to

the larger Jewish past. Building these

structures stems from social relations at

the same time it historicizes these social

relations and the religious beliefs that

are treated as constituting them. Holi-days that lack an interpersonal compo-

nent (e.g., Columbus Day or President’s

Day) are less effective in bolstering

a social system. The challenge of Martin

Luther King’s Birthday is to find

strategies, perhaps through volunteering,

that transform a day absent of work to

a day that creates a shared public. Mutual

presence and the emotional energy that

this brings contribute to the political

and moral socialization of the partici-pants. The sharing of an event, and the

recognition of common narratives, makes

history collective (Tilly 2006). States can

provide for social control and individuals

can provide for personal recognition, but

it is the group that permits communal

memories to become integrated into the

self.

Idioculture and Social Control

For a tiny public to be effective it must

enforce standards and encourage predict-

ability. This is the Hobbesian problem

once again, creating a balance between

extended and narrow boundaries on

action. Ideally social control should be

implicit—and welcome—given estab-

lished social relations. Limits on action

should not be based on external force,

but on the desires of participants. Control

should be internal, but collective. As

Ellickson (1991) underlines, through the

moral weight of a group, ‘‘order without

law’’ emerges. In the words of Scott

(2012:30), this creates a ‘‘vernacular

order,’’ in contrast to the ‘‘official order.’’

In small-scale social systems, such as

roommate dyads (Emerson 2008) or

school meetings (Hallett, Harger, and

Eder 2009), strategies of informal control

arise, building on an overwhelming desire

to maintain easy interaction, encouraging

accommodation and local remediation

(Morrill 1995). Formal control happens,

but small groups are more effective

when power is gloved, as through teasing

or gossip.When a need for a more powerful and

extended social control is perceived, group

boundaries are solidified, either through

pronouncements by those who lead the





group or through a consensus of mem-

bers. A group can coalesce to erect bar-

riers to participation by an individual or

a subgroup that it finds disruptive, offen-

sive, or resistant. This became clear in

the nineteenth-century suffrage, women’s

rights, and temperance movements. Far-

rell (2001:259) describes the splits in the

National American Woman Suffrage Asso-

ciation that required Susan B. Anthony to

use her considerable prestige to cement

Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s acceptance as

president of the organization.

Recognizing the attempt to limit

action, Weiner (2013) speaks of a funda-

mental division between a constraining

system of ‘‘clans’’ and a more open liberal

individualism. Despite Weiner’s concern,

groups can and often do accept conflict

rather than suffer the costs that could

flow from exclusion. Depending on those

forces that bind the group (e.g., common

resources), contending subgroups may

either split or the conflict may continue.

Mechanisms of social control are not

invariably successful in tamping conflict

and some level of dispute might be trea-

ted as legitimate or even desirable.

An interaction order may include space

for opposing interests or divergent

claims.

How groups enforce control in such

a way as to link with larger concerns is

evident in the case of those who are seen

as undermining the idea of a nation or

people. Kim (2013) analyzes how Koreans

who collaborated with the Japanese were

treated by their fellow nationals. Kim,

tracing the interactional routines in

Japanese-controlled Korea, finds that

Koreans had to make choices about their

relations with the Japanese, taking into

account the benefits that they could

receive from participating in the Japa-

nese-run state system, but at the same

time recognizing the condemnation that

they might receive from others within

their interactional sphere. The dangers

were not only from official shaming, lim-

ited because of Japanese presence, but

from local disgrace. Only after the Japa-

nese were overthrown could a more for-

mal condemnation arise, but even here,

the choices of who would be condemned

were made by groups and small collec-

tives—reputational entrepreneurs—that

assumed responsibility for shaping the

collective memory of this period in Korean

history through the establishment of an

encyclopedia that listed those collabora-

tors whom the organizers considered trai-

tors to the nation (Kim and Fine 2013).

This is but one instance, although a pow-

erful one, that reveals decisions about jus-

tice and control are organized on the levelof the group that is given or takes the

authority to evaluate the allegiances of

others. While courts (and juries) are them-

selves small groups (Burnett 2001; Dia-

mond and Rose 2005; Manzo 1993), often

communal stability occurs through the

recognition that law is not the most effec-

tive source of control. Groups provideimmediate surveillance that combine insti-

tution and interaction to maintain what is

considered to be morality and justice.

TINY PUBLICS AND THEIR FRIENDS

I praise the illuminating reality of the

meso-level of action, treating it as a hinge

that connects persons and institutions.

The examination of small group dynamics

and idiocultures (Fine 2012) can open the

black box of social organization. I take

this argument a step further and suggest

that focusing on the meso-level brings us

closer to recognizing how individuals

affiliate with political systems through

their tiny publics. This is how society

operates: by groups mobilizing them-

selves as the vectors of commitment. To

be sure, the properties of these tiny pub-

lics are highly variable, and each needs

to be considered in light of those institu-

tions and publics that surround them.





Some publics strive to incorporate plural-

istic perspectives, while in other cases the

boundaries are more tightly controlled

and the character of the group is more

homogeneous.

By ignoring the interaction order, soci-

ology has neglected the link between indi-

vidual actions and how these actions

generate affiliation within civil society,

providing political structures with tensile

strength. The public sphere is a realm of

local action, and without this recognition

the linkage between individual and state

is uncertain. While sociologists should

analyze the creation of communities of

affiliation at a distance, for citizens that

linkage operates up close. Civic affiliation

becomes real through families, class-

rooms, clubs, social movements, union

locals, and political campaigns. The pres-

ence of like-minded others creates the col-

lective representations on which institu-

tions depend. Belonging to a political

system is not merely an idea, but depends

on action. In this, political sociology is

tethered to social psychology. Citizenship

develops from the reality of the interac-

tion order.

Civil society requires the idea of civility

that in turn builds upon microcommun-

ities in which this civility is modeled.

The idea of the citizen, whether patriotic

or in revolt, depends on the idea that

one is not alone. But what does this

mean? One is not alone because one

believes in a linked fate with others.

One is part of a group of similar selves.

But simply believing that one is like

others is not sufficient. The creation of

sets of relations, constituting social capi-

tal, recognizes a community of others

with whom one is in common cause and

with whom one can work, building what

one cannot create alone (Sennett 2012).

One needs places in which selves can

meet and recognize their common partici-

pation. The provisioning of places of

action is essential. Combining spaces

and persons permits the demonstration

of one’s commitment through the perfor-

mance of civic selves, and then becoming

solidified through the sharing of histories.

Finally, tiny publics cause or become the

target of control, either through the rele-

vance of shared beliefs or because those

groups that run institutional systems

have access to resources that permit

them to enforce their preferred rules and

regulations. These processes are as evi-

dent in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in 2011 as

in Seneca Falls in 1848. To be sure the

moral order, characteristics of actors, spa-

tial opportunities, and apparatus of con-

trol differed, but the role of the group as

the core of social action remained central.

In this article I attempt to present the

general conditions and processes of a the-

ory of ‘‘tiny publics.’’ However, we should

not assume that all groups provide

equally effective conditions for organizing

and generating public engagement. We

must examine variability in the forms of

group culture and the uses to which they

are put. Some societies operate with

robust and lasting groups, whereas else-

where, perhaps because of distinct styles

of interaction, levels of surveillance, or

forms of social control, local participation

may be truncated. Examining how varia-

tion arises and creates effects is an impor-

tant future direction for research and the-

orizing. If we think about the properties of

tiny publics as variables, we can compare

the networks of tiny publics of nations

and regions (personal communication,

Michael Farrell, 2013). This potentially

provides a more sophisticated under-

standing of how properties of tiny publics

shape the social order and the choices of

individuals.

Ultimately individuals become part of

political systems not through the system

as such, but because they are surrounded

by others with whom they recognize that

they have similar interests. A Leviathan

is not necessary when there are many





schools of fish. Meso-structures reduce

the need for a single overarching power

center.

We who believe in the power of groups

to create an interaction order must make

this case persuasively to our colleagues.Affiliations among persons create affilia-

tion with society. Allegiance is constituted

in the local worlds in which citizens par-

ticipate and then extends to allegiance

to a world that is more expansive, but per-

ceived as similar in kind. This is the hinge

on which society depends.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I thank Michael Farrell, Tim Hallett, and CalvinMorrill for their helpful critiques.

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BIO

Gary Alan Fine is John Evans Professor

of Sociology at Northwestern University.

He received his PhD in social psychology

in 1976 from the Department of Psychol-

ogy and Social Relations at Harvard Uni-

versity and has taught at the Universityof Minnesota and the University of Geor-

gia. He is recently the author of Tiny Pub-

lics: A Theory of Group Action and Cul-

ture (2012). His current research is an

ethnographic study of the socialization of

MFA students in the visual arts, examin-

ing the politics of intentionality.





The Hinge: Civil Society, Group Culture, and the Interaction Order

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