1 1

1 Howard S. Becker’s Symbolic Interactionism

2 Sandro Segre
3

5 The question as to whether Howard S. Becker’s work could be considered within the
6 theoretical framework provided by Symbolic Interactionism, though possibly with a
7 position of his own, has not been so far the object of detailed studies. Becker has
8 been mentioned among the “new leaders” (Charon 2001, p. 29) of Symbolic
9 Interactionism. This perspective, however, has been connoted by different Schools
10 and theoretical assumptions (cf. Fine 1993, pp. 70-71). Becker’s preference for this
11 sociological perspective, though clearly stated (Becker 2007b, p. 9), may not be
12 sufficient to tackle this question. As an attempt to grapple with it, this article sets out
13 to explore Becker’s version of Symbolic Interactionism. The article first dwells on
14 Becker’s numerous statements that directly concern, or are proximate to, this
15 sociological perspective. These statements will be then condensed in a few points and
16 their relation to other presentations of this sociological perspective discussed. Finally,
17 Becker’s potential contribution to Symbolic Interactionism will be evaluated in the
18 light of these assessments.
19

20 Howard S. Becker’s Symbolic Interactionism: an Outline. Becker defines Symbolic

21 Interactionism as a sociological tradition that rests on the study of “particular
22 situations in great detail through detailed observation” (McCall, Becker 1990. p.5).
23 Their definition, as is the case of definitions in general, “arises in a network of
24 relations” rather than by virtue of “abstract sociological theorizing”, of which Becker
25 has “a deep suspicion” (Becker 1998, pp. 3-4). As he writes elsewhere, presentation
26 of ideas, or “stories”, are “more important than theorizing” (Becker 2007b, p. 106).
27 Theorizing, as Becker has stated in an interview, “is never a finished product” (Danko
28 2015b, p. 160). Possibly for this reason, Becker has denied to be a theorist. He has
29 therefore refused to “subscribe to any school of thought or theoretical position,”
30 including Symbolic Interactionism (cf. Danko 2015b, pp. 161, 163; cf. also Peneff
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1 2014, p. 97). The Symbolic Interactionist tradition “focuses on real actors in real
2 situations” (Becker 2007b, p. 9). The thrust of Becker’s work, as he has declared in
3 an interview with Dagmar Danko, is “to focus on how individual tendencies,
4 wherever they come from, get modified in the course of interaction with others”
5 (Danko D. 2015b, p.164).
6 Situations can be understood only by means of a “thick description” (Becker
7 2007a, p. 284) of the observation object, in keeping with the ethnographic
8 conventions in the social sciences. Thick descriptions are instrumental in permitting
9 “the uncovering of underlying knowledge and relational structures” and of “the
10 structural and interactional regularities” that may be unperceived by the actors
11 involved (Denzin 1983, pp. 143-145). Situations have meanings, which may not be
12 immediately apparent to all the participants. They are, however, obvious and taken
13 for granted by most people, including sociologists, as long as they have not refrained
14 at their own peril from “fuller participation in society” (Becker 1998, p. 16). Thick
15 description rests on this condition. Sociologists are prevented from “accounting for
16 regularity in people’s actions” when they abstain from directly participating in social
17 situations (Becker 1998, p. 46). As “meaning is constructed in the process of
18 interaction” (McCall, Becker 1990, p. 6), Becker’s recommendation is “to look
19 carefully at the actual activities in question”, and to pay also attention to contingency;
20 namely, to “the balance of constraints and opportunities available to the actors,” “the
21 chancy character of what happened”, and to how situations, acts and people are
22 defined by other more powerful actors in ways that cannot be known in advance
23 (Becker 1963, p. 207; 1994, p. 188; McCall, Becker 1990, p.6).
24 Becker’s stress on situations, and on their collective definition on the part of
25 powerful groups, accords with the emphasis on these notions (rather than on the
26 notion of self), which also other students of Everett Hughes have conferred (Fine
27 1993, p. 77). What occurs in someone’s life, in other words, depends “not only on his
28 actions and choices, but also on what on all the other people he was involved with
29 did” (Becker 1994, p. 19). Participant observation is the method that is consistent
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1 with this recommendation, provided that the group constituting the research object is
2 followed continuously, and that its total day’s activities are observed (Becker, Geer,
3 Hughes, Strauss 1961, p. 27; for an introduction to participant observation as a
4 research method, cf. Denzin 1970, pp. 185-218). All the cultural objects receive
5 meaning only from their context. Therefore, there is no room for large generalizations
6 as they are not context-bound (Becker 2007a, p. 192; Faulkner, Becker 2009, 111).
7 This also holds true for situations which the subjects experience through
8 representations; for their users actively participate in the representation process by
9 interpreting and conferring it with meanings, which the representation makers may
10 not have intended (Becker 2007a, pp. 90-91). Participation, in this sense, requires
11 imagery, for imagery – rather than any pre-existing structure - determines the ideas,
12 the questions, and the answers pertaining to the research (Becker 1998, p. 13). Becker
13 borrows this research method from anthropology, a discipline he studied at the
14 University of Chicago with Lloyd Warner (Becker 1963, p. viii). The notion of
15 ‘world’ or ‘social world’ deserves consideration here because of its importance for
16 Becker, and for Symbolic Interactionism in general. Becker has endeavored to clarify
17 this notion in the course of an interview, in which the interviewer – Alain Pessin,
18 Becker’s friend and scholar - has asked him to do so.
19 A ‘world’, as Becker intends it, is “an ensemble of people who do things together”
20 (Becker and Pessin, 2017, p. 97); or, otherwise stated, “.a more or less stable
21 organization of collective activity” (McCall, Becker 1990, p. 9). Becker goes on to
22 clarify these somewhat elliptic definitions by subjoining that a world consists of “real
23 people who are trying to get things done, largely by getting other people to do things
24 that will assist them in their project” (Becker and Pessin, 2017, p. 99). People are free
25 to do what they please, but their actions “are limited by what they can force or
26 persuade other people to do” (Becker and Pessin, 2017, p. 98). Instead of openness
27 and spontaneity, Becker finds, on the one hand, the relevance of “the ‘chance’
28 elements in social life” (Becker 1991, p. 185), but on the other hand, also regularity
29 in people conducts, and wonders how to account for this state of affairs.
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1 His answer lays emphasis on the existence of conventions; for conventions

2 involve participants in any activity, in which they have agreed to participate, to
3 perform it in a given way rather than otherwise. Becker defines conventions as “the
4 kind of shared understanding social scientists recognize under a variety of names:
5 culture, norm, shared understanding, etc.” They are quite important, since “competent
6 members of an art world” are thereby enabled to decide when an art work is the same
7 or is different in relation to others. The art work is such not because of any inherent
8 attribute, but rather because conventions make people decide that the given object
9 they view, or hear, or read in any particular time and circumstance is art. In other
10 words, “The consumers of the work also share in its production” (Becker 2006, pp.
11 23-24).
12 Becker subjoins that the most fruitful way to study artworks sociologically is not
13 to focus on the finished artwork; for there is no such thing, he maintains. Rather, the
14 focus should be on the artwork in progress, which results from the co-operation of all
15 those different people – not only the artists – who participate with different roles in
16 the art world in ways, and with outcomes that cannot be known in advance (Becker
17 2006, pp. 18-20; 2008, pp. 160-16; Becker, Faulkner, and Kirschenblatt-Gimblett
18 2006, pp. 2-3). In this sense, Becker mentions “the fundamental indeterminacy of the
19 artwork” (Becker 2006, p. 26). Conventions, however, are not only relevant for social
20 scientists as students of norms and cultures, and for art experts who have to decide
21 whether a given object is art. As sets of moral norms and rules, they are also of
22 importance, according to Becker, to anyone who belongs to any social group; as its
23 members can thereby “coordinate their separate lines of action” (Becker 2008, p.
24 370).
25 Through a “political and economic process”, conventions create and enforce “the
26 rules whose infraction constitutes deviance” (Becker 1963, p. 17). Those who are
27 thought to have violated them are labeled offenders, and punished accordingly
28 (Becker 1963, p. 17). Even if Becker may have not clearly defined the notion of
29 labeling (Schur 1971, p. 23), still this notion and the labeling theory in general have
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1 been associated with his name. Relevant interactions, in this case, are those which
2 take place between some people who are reputed offenders and other people who
3 inflict sanctions to them on this ground. Labeling theory “very much builds on
4 symbolic interaction,” irrespective of whether its focus is on deviance or on other
5 activities. Becker has based this theory on such symbolic interactionist concepts as
6 “definition, identification, involvement, group alignments, and social regulation”
7 (Prus 1996, p. 82).
8

9 Howard S. Becker’s Symbolic Interactionism: the Notion of Structure. The concept of

10 structure is also relevant for Becker’s version of Symbolic Interactionism, however.
11 In this regard, Becker writes in the “Art World” that “Social organization or social
12 structure” is “a metaphorical way of referring to those recurrent networks and their
13 activities”. Social structures, in other words, are for Becker recurrent modes of
14 collective action (Becker 2008, p. 370). As Becker has stressed in a paper on the
15 Sociology of music, whatever structure or order may be found in the players’
16 executions necessarily involves a reciprocal orientation and co-ordination between
17 them. This may be brought into light only by virtue of detailed and prolonged
18 observation of their performances (Becker 2015; see also Faulkner, Becker 2009,
19 pp.118-122, 190-191; McCall, Becker 1990, pp. 5-6).
20 Accordingly, Becker’s rejects any abstract concept – the concept of structure is a
21 case in point – whose empirical references “are not observable in social life” (Becker,
22 Pessin 2017, p. 97). Becker has not been the only representative of Symbolic
23 Interactionism who has conceived of and used the notion of structure. It may be in
24 this regard worthwhile to consider how some other important representatives of
25 Symbolic Interactionism have dealt with this notion. It is customary to distinguish
26 between different variants of this sociological perspective, such as the Chicago and
27 the Iowa schools (cf. Meltzer, Petras, Reynolds 1975). The distinction which will be
28 focused on here is different; for it bears on the divergence between Blumer and
29 Stryker as major exponents of contemporary Symbolic Interactionism, insofar as their
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1 respective conceptions of social structure are concerned. Other conceptions of

2 structure – or of semantically proximate terms such as order, as in McHugh (1968,
3 pp. 83-92) – have been formulated in keeping with this perspective’s theoretical
4 framework. They will not be considered here, however.
5 The concept of social structure plays an important role in Blumer’s foundational
6 work on Symbolic Interactionism (Blumer 1968). As he has argued in general against
7 all abstract sociological categories, this notion, too, holds water for him only as long
8 as it derives “from the complex of ongoing activity that constitutes group life”
9 (Blumer 1968, p. 6). Blumer views group life as “a process of formative transaction.”
10 Therefore, abstract notions such as “cultural norms, status positions and role
11 relationships”, which are generally considered components of the social structure, are
12 for him only “frameworks inside of which that process goes on” (Blumer 1968, p.
13 116). Blumer’s processual view of social structure has not gone unchallenged even on
14 the part of sociologists who are close to Symbolic Interactionism. We shall mention
15 here Stryker’s conception of social structure, and of Symbolic Interactionism in
16 general, as “it stands in sharp contrast” (Stryker 1980, p. 99) with Blumer’s.
17 Stryker observes that Blumer’s Symbolic Interactionism, with its stress on the
18 definition of situation, makes a poor alternative to his own broader version of this
19 perspective. He also remarks that Blumer’s notion of social structure makes this
20 concept “disappear entirely in the solvent of social process” (Stryker 1980, p. 84).
21 Stryker’s interpretation of Blumer as an astructural thinker has been questioned as
22 wrong and misleading (Musolf 1992, p. 181). Stryker’s own position on this notion
23 refers to those “aspects of social life in which subsets of persons are tied together in
24 patterned interactions”, in accordance with a conventional view of social structure.
25 Stryker subjoins, however, that “concrete interactions are the ultimate reference of all
26 sociological and social psychological constructs,” such as the construct of social
27 structure (Stryker 1980, p. 66). Like Blumer, Stryker focuses on social interactions as
28 the elementary components of social structure; but – in contrast to Blumer – Stryker
29 points to “structures of interaction,” to the effect that people do not interact randomly
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1 but rather they do so considering “the complex interplay of preexisting selves,

2 definitions of others, definitions of the situation, and so on” (Stryker 1980, p. 67).
3 How Becker would be then situated in this field of contention? This field points to
4 an important divide in the perspective of Symbolic Interactionism. While Stryker is
5 hardly mentioned by Becker himself or by Becker scholars, most Becker’s
6 interpreters agree on his allegiance to and continuity with Blumer. “Becker is
7 undoubtedly a pupil of Blumer,” according to Dagmar Danko (Danko 2015a, p. 23).
8 Other interpreters of Becker concur with this judgment, at least to the extent that they
9 mention Blumer’s importance to Becker’s sociological education (Peneff 2018, p. 82;
10 Pessin 2017, p. xviii). Jean Peneff, however, who has been Becker’s friend for many
11 years and knows his oeuvre thoroughly, has pointed to the difficulty of pigeonholing
12 Becker into any pre-established and generic sociological group. Peneff contends, in
13 particular, that qualifying Becker as an interactionist would be “certainly a
14 simplification,” and observes that Becker wishes to abide by his own, “independent
15 and original,” way of working (Peneff 2018, pp. 97-98).
16 In this connection, an important article on Blumer, which Becker published in
17 1988, may help clarifying the complex personal and scholarly relationship between
18 these two authors (Becker 1988). For not only Blumer had been Becker’s teacher; he
19 had also a permanent impact on Becker’s way of conceiving the task and the proper
20 methods of the sociological discipline. Becker lauds Blumer, moreover, for his ability
21 to produce “a truly axiomatic-deductive theoretical system” (Becker 1988, p. 17), and
22 for “his idea of the sensitizing concept” (Becker 1988, p. 18). A few reservations limit
23 Becker’s appreciation of Blumer. Becker objects to Blumer’s “tremendously abstract”
24 conceptual and theoretical system; to its impracticality for sociological researchers;
25 and to the “indefensible character of the results” of Blumer’s research methods, if
26 applied consistently (Becker 1988, pp. 19-20). These reservations notwithstanding,
27 Becker concurs with Blumer’s foundational thesis that “the use of meanings by the
28 actor occurs through a process of interpretation” (Blumer 1969, p. 5).
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1 This point should deserve further consideration. Before dwelling on it, however, it
2 may be worthwhile to summarize what is specific to Becker’s version of Symbolic
3 Interactionism, as follows: 1) Becker has refused any characterization, or label, of his
4 work, aside from the generic one of sociologist. 2) Accordingly, Symbolic
5 Interactionism is merely a sociological perspective he prefers to others. 3) Becker
6 follows Blumer’s rather than Stryker’s version of Symbolic Interactionism, and on
7 the whole concurs with Blumer’s methodological and epistemological assumptions.
8 3) However, leaving aside other criticisms, Becker disagrees with Blumer in that he
9 finds Blumer’s concepts and theories too abstract.
10

11 Howard S. Becker’s Symbolic Interactionism: the Notion of Interpretive

12 Communities. Becker agrees with Blumer’s assertion that group actions consist of
13 “the collective or concerted action of individuals seeking to meet their life situations”
14 (Blumer 1969, p. 84). In other words, collective actions ultimately result from
15 individual interactions. However, Becker does not focus on individual interactions,
16 but rather on collective actions, which he considers, along with the specific events
17 they produce, “the basic unit of sociological investigation”. As he and McCall write,
18 “Symbolic Interactionism emphasizes collective action” (McCall, Becker 1990, p. 9).
19 Becker is particularly interested in the cooperative networks of which organized
20 collective actions consist; for these networks make it possible to have shared
21 understanding, and therefore to establish conventions between participants and to
22 coordinate their activities (Becker 2006, pp. 23-34; 2008, pp. 370-371).
23 Communities as the locus of routine cooperation, collective action, and shared
24 experiences form a world which is meaningful to them and to others as well. Musical
25 communities are a case in point (Becker 2008, pp. 160-162; Becker, Pessin 2017, p.
26 98; Faulkner, Becker 2009, pp. 172-173). Becker is especially interested in particular
27 communities, which he calls interpretive communities. This designation refers to
28 “the network of people who make and use a particular form of representation.” Such
29 a network forms an interpretive community if and to the extent that the groups, which
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1 this network constitutes, “share enough knowledge … to interpret the representations

2 commonly made and used by their members” (Becker 2007a, p. 66). The concept of
3 interpretive communities is peculiar to Becker’s version of Interpretive
4 Interactionism, as it is not common in other versions of the Symbolic Interactionist
5 perspective.
6 For they focus on those “meaningful interpretations of human experience”, which
7 “can only come from those persons who have thoroughly immersed themselves in the
8 phenomenon they wish to interpret and understand” (Denzin 1983, p. 133).The stress
9 on individual, rather than collective, interpretations is in accordance with Blumer’s
10 position. If it is posited with Blumer that “a human society or group consist of people
11 in association”, then Blumer’s stance follows as a consequence: “Such association
12 exists necessarily in the form of people acting toward one another and thus engaging
13 in social interaction” (Blumer 1969, p. 10). According to Blumer and Denzin, and to
14 Symbolic Interactionism in general, the meaningful interpretations of human
15 experience are then the outcome of associations between individuals; ultimately,
16 associations follow from their cooperative social interaction (cf. Charon 2001, pp.
17 169-174). Individuals, rather than communities, perform interpretations, in keeping
18 with these two representatives of mainstream Symbolic Interactionism. The notion of
19 interpretive communities is therefore Becker’s own contribution to this perspective.
20 A further contribution is Becker’s notion of world. A world, it will be recalled, has
21 been defined by him as an ensemble of people who do things together. Becker
22 emphasizes the existence of networks of people who jointly and cooperatively
23 coordinate their activities in order to produce a given work (Becker 2008, pp. 34-35,
24 161). This notion of social worlds is similar, but not identical, to the one which
25 Symbolic Interactionism has formulated. According to Symbolic Interactionism, a
26 social world (or society) is “the interaction of people and the ongoing communication
27 by means of symbols” (Charon 2001, p. 170); as long, however, as such interactions
28 and symbolic communications give “rise to a separate world,” which may be defined
29 as “a universe of regularized mutual response.” A social world’s boundaries cannot
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1 therefore extend beyond “the limits of effective communication” (Shibutani 1955, p.

2 566).
3 Therefore, the Symbolic Interactionist tradition defines the social world in terms of
4 mutual interactions and effective communications. Networks of meaning are relevant
5 to this perspective. In this, and possibly in other regards as well, the viewpoint of
6 Symbolic Interactionism – with its focus on interactions among individuals sharing
7 networks of meaning – resembles to, but not coincides with, the viewpoint of network
8 theory; for the latter theory focuses on the configuration of networks and strength of
9 ties, but is oblivious to the meaning of social ties, and has refrained from clearly
10 defining what it means by ‘social’ (Salvini 2010, pp. 372, 375-378). Becker, for his
11 part, has no objection to the Symbolic Interactionist conception of networks (cf. Fine,
12 Kleinman 1993), but prefers to lay stress on the outcome of the “work” actors
13 cooperatively perform in networks. In keeping with the sociometric and
14 anthropological traditions of research on small networks, Becker’s networks form “a
15 distinct and relatively integrated sphere of informal, interpersonal relations.” These
16 “networks of interdependent activities” form a structure (Scott 1987, pp. 12-13).This
17 is a meaningful structure, as Becker emphasizes (Becker 1998, p. 3).
18

19 Howard S. Becker’s Symbolic Interactionism: the Notion of Convention. Finally, still

20 another contribution on Becker’s part to the perspective of Symbolic Interactionism is
21 his notion of convention. As mentioned, this notion refers in Becker’s writings to
22 shared understanding among the members of a given social world. The objects of
23 such understanding vary, but in any case they concern “earlier agreements” that “have
24 become customary” (Becker 2008, p. 29), and “provide the basis” on which
25 participants in a social world “can act together efficiently to produce works
26 characteristic” of that world (Becker 2008, p. 42). By means of conventions,
27 moreover, and with reference to the art world, competent members of that world are
28 enabled to decide “where an artwork is the ‘same’ and when it is ‘different’” (Becker
29 2006, p. 23).
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1 To be sure, Symbolic Interactionism has dwelt on conventions, in the sense of

2 common agreements (cf. Charon 2001, p.47). Conventions, however, as Becker uses
3 this term, has a much greater relevance, since he links this notion with the one of
4 social world, and therefore with work as the result of cooperative activity.
5 Becker’s specific contribution to Symbolic Interactionism consists then in the
6 following two points: a) his critical slant of his reception of Blumer; b) his notions of
7 social world, conventions and interpretive communities. A sketchy version of a
8 Symbolic Interactionist Theory, which would be entirely Becker’s, could be then
9 formulated as follows: 1) Networks of meaningful, habitual, and cooperative actions
10 produce work if these informal interpersonal relations form a social world; 2) This
11 social world is constituted by shared experiences and by interdependent activities; 3)
12 It is therefore empirically observable as a concrete social actuality; 4) This social
13 world is a community if - and only if - it is the site of routine cooperation, collective
14 action, and shared experiences which are meaningful to those who participate in
15 them, and to others as well.
16

17 Conclusive Observations. Becker’s contribution to Symbolic Interactionism points to

18 a specific direction in this perspective. This contribution fundamentally accords with
19 Blumer’s version of it; however, it departs from it in that it makes important additions
20 to its conceptual apparatus, such as the notions of world, conventions (both terms as
21 in Becker’s sense), and interpretive communities, and formulates new theoretical
22 propositions with reference to them. Becker, it has been remarked, “Is very
23 suspicious of abstract sociological theorizations”, and considers theory “a necessary
24 evil” (Pessin 2017, p. 66). These reservations notwithstanding, Becker concurs with
25 the Symbolic Interactionist thesis that “the social order is constructed through
26 meaningful, self-other interactions” (Fine, Kleinman 1983, p. 97). Becker also
27 concurs with those who reject the charge of an “astructural bias” in Blumer’s and
28 Blumer-inspired Symbolic Interactionism (cf. Musolf 1992). Becker, finally, shares
29 with Blumer and his followers a commitment to conduct empirical observations, and
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1 to avoid lofty and empty generalizations, as the distinguishing task of sociology if it

2 is worthy of its name.
3

6 References
7

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