Categories in Social Interaction by Kevin Whitehead, Elizabeth Stokoe and Geoffrey Raymond explores the human tendency to sort others into pre-conceived categories in our everyday interactions, which can reinforce stereotypes and lead to discrimination. Grounded in conversation analysis and rich empirical examples, this is a timely and essential contribution to the study of social interaction, according to Yves Laberge.
How we understand ourselves and others
How do we see ourselves? How do we perceive others? Is the way we perceive ourselves the same as how others interpret us? The moment we first meet someone new, we tend to compartmentalise them into our familiar scheme of types. The individuals you interact with have a similar tendency to classify your person, your looks, your behaviour according to their perspective and life experience. We are situated within a series of pre-existing categories, that we did not select i.e. visible minorities, seemingly educated persons, youths and senior citizens, etc.
The analysis of this phenomenon and of social interactions more broadly is one facet that distinguishes sociology from other, related disciplines like psychology. While psychologists focus on individual perceptions, most sociologists concentrate on the interaction between individuals, and what emerges from these interacting processes, for example through Conversation Analysis (CA).
Categories in Social Interaction explores the inner processes at work in social interactions and highlights the effects of unquestioned attitudes and preconceptions.
A variety of recent publications have explored the dynamics of, and preconceptions shaping, interaction. Researchers have explored various facets of this broad topic, from Symbolic Interactionism to Narratives and from CA to hidden forms of discrimination. A new scholarly book by Kevin Whitehead, Elizabeth Stokoe and Geoffrey Raymond, Categories in Social Interaction explores the inner processes at work in social interactions and highlights the effects of unquestioned attitudes and preconceptions. All three authors specialise in social interaction and CA, with Whitehead and Raymond based in UC Santa Barbara’s Department of Sociology and Stokoe based in LSE’s Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science. They approach social interactions from a variety of perspectives, taking a resolute transdisciplinary view.
The tendency to categorise
Categories – and therefore categorisations and the reflex of categorising – matter in our everyday life and experiences. Even though we do not always fully realise it, “throughout our daily interactions, we categorise ourselves and other people, individuals and groups, unavoidably, in myriad ways” (1). Of course, categorising can be harmful for others and misleading for ourselves, leading to “stereotyping, prejudice, discrimination, marginalization, and power relation to them (…)” (9). But whether we like it or not, that is the way many people operate, think, and react whenever they have to deal with other people, especially strangers. Therefore, instead of condemning the habits of categorising or making judgments, today’s social scientists must instead grasp these modes of interaction that can sometimes lead to social problems such as racism, agism, and other forms of stigmatisation, dehumanisation, and social exclusion. For example, disabled persons are often seen by others as just people with a disability, and nothing else.
A hefty and impressive volume, Categories in Social Interaction comprises ten chapters, mainly based on Harold Garfinkel’s ethnomethodological paradigm. Garfinkel’s approach does not seek, as Functionalists do, to understand groups and societies as a whole system creating “social pressure” on individuals. Garfinkel’s Studies in Ethnomethodology (1967) is the founding text of the field which examines the ways in which ordinary people construct a stable social world through everyday utterances and actions.
The theoretical framework is strong, grounded and contemporary. The ethnomethodological approach does not make a judgement on the tendency towards classification. Rather, it examines how those beliefs, and their effects, are socially produced and reproduced. Ethnomethodologists seek to “analyse the workings of these categories, not to merely use them as they are used in the world’” (86). Other key theorists convened here are sociolinguists Harvey Sacks (who published the seminal book Lectures on Conversation in 1992) and Emanuel Schegloff, author Sequence Organization in Interaction (2007), the latter of whose work is cited extensively throughout Categories in Social Interaction.
The central chapters provide many detailed examples of Conversation Analysis and strategies to detect any subtle – and sometimes not so subtle – occurrence of categorising that lead to stereotyping and discrimination in ordinary conversations.
The central chapters (three to nine) provide many detailed examples of CA and strategies to detect any subtle – and sometimes not so subtle – occurrence of categorising that lead to stereotyping and discrimination in ordinary conversations. This can take the form of reducing individuals to their ethnicity or gender, for example, freely using some highly charged terms such as: “old/er people”, “lady” or “Black female”, for example (258). In a footnote, the authors indicate they are reluctant to use alternative approaches such as “sequential analysis”, which concentrates more on the logics that seem to appear in the succession of ideas and sentences. But they argue that “it [sequential analysis] elides attention to a much wider range of generic structures and practices of interaction than just the analysis of sequences” (30, note 1). The focus, they argue, should be on the conversation itself, with all its complex and unforeseen dimensions and implications. There are no conversations without consequences, which cannot be apprehended in advance.
Algorithms (like Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa) are forcing scholars to rethink, reinvent and reset our common ways to approach and theorise our social interactions.
The whole book is instructive, coherent, and up to date. In the final chapter (titled “What Now and What Next?”), some remarks in the last pages even consider doing CA in the context of conversational AI systems, considering how algorithms (like Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa) are forcing scholars to rethink, reinvent and reset our common ways to approach and theorise our social interactions. Increasingly, these devices and machines can predict our reasoning and objections when having a phone call with an organisation, bank or governmental office (327).
Methodology over ideology
The discussion of ideology seems noticeably absent. While other scholars doing CA such as social psychologist Michael Billig often rely on ideology, Whitehead, Stokoe and Raymond do not explicitly engage with it, even though the book deals with racism and various forms of discrimination. This is not a quibble, however. Rather, it is a general remark on the book’s critical lens that could possibly lead to a future article. Canadian sociolinguist Lionel Meney has based many books on the links between ideologies and conversations. My tentative explanation is that the authors’ choice to rely on Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology leaves no room for ideologies. Of course, Whitehead, Stokoe and Raymond are aware of this approach, and they insist on the fact that ordinary people, when describing or interpreting their “world”, use terms and perceptions that should not be seen as “reality” or “truth”, rather as signals that can reveal their uncensored worldview. They assert that “interview materials can also be studied as interactions in their own right – as topic rather than resource (…) [their emphasis]”, and as sites for “displaying the cultural knowledge that can be used to account for oneself’ as a category member” (96).
In my view, Categories in Social Interaction is not just another interesting title on sociological research. Its solid theoretical framework and the numerous, detailed examples of CA that appear in central chapters make it an original and essential contribution to the study of social interactions. The authors successfully present and analyse both the theoretical and practical dimensions of CA and, on a broader level, the mechanisms inside everyday social interactions. Researchers, teachers and graduate students will find it an invaluable resource for furthering their understanding.
Note: This review gives the views of the interviewer and author, not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Image: Small Group Network on Unsplash.
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