Abstract
This chapter considers the work of Gary Alan Fine, probably the most prolific contemporary cultural ethnographer and one of the key contributors to the sociology of small groups. In the chapter, Fine’s intellectual journey is explored, from his earlier studies on the Baseball little league to his recent research on ‘futurework’ and the way forecast is culturally and organizationally structured. While Fine’s perspective is interdisciplinary, with anthropology (in particular the American tradition related to folklore and language studies), social psychology and sociology being the key elements, theoretically he has developed the symbolic interactionist tradition. He thus highlights the constructed nature of social worlds by emphasizing the set of meanings through which social actors define such worlds and their limits, and in particular he identifies the small group, and its internal verbal interaction, as the foundation of his approach. Our daily lives are conceived as archipelagos of small groups. As we travel by, we shape the map in which they are located and through which we recognize ourselves. Considering Fine’s whole career, the relationship between expressive culture (forms of talk and codes of feelings) and social structure may be said to be the main focus of his empirical and theoretical work. His approach remains evidently linked to interaction, from which he refrains to detach and to which he tries to bring back discourse, or indeed people’s accounts as expressed in the cultural whisperings that swells up into rumors and gossip. Fine is perhaps the most prolific and versatile ethnographer in contemporary sociology. And a sociologist focused on interaction – both as a methodological and as an ontological element – must start from being on the spot. Fine’s importance, lays on his ability of finding places where, by speaking of small fragments of reality, it becomes possible to speak of broad cultural borders – thus the culture of mushroom collectors enables us to focus on the border between culture and nature, while the work of weather forecasters brings us to think about the relationship between present and future. His originality is undoubtedly grounded in his ability to recognize the external reality of social structure as it is translated into specific cultural forms anchored to small group culture. The chapter closes with an overall appreciation of Fine’s contribution to the symbolic interactionist tradition, focusing in particular on his furthering of our understanding of the emotional and the cognitive aspects of interaction.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Blumer, Herbert (1969): Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Bourdieu, Pierre (1977): Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bourdieu, Pierre (1979/1984): Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Chapouli, Jean-Michel (2001): La tradition sociologique de Chicago. 1892–1961. Paris: Seuil.
Darnell, Regna (2001): Invisible Genealogies: A History of American Anthropology. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
Derrida, Jacques (1972/1982): Margins of Philosophy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Fine, Gary Alan (1979): ‘Cokelore and Coke Law: Urban Belief Tales and the Problem of Multiple Origins’. Journal of American Folklore, 92 (366):477–482.
Fine, Gary Alan (1980): ‘The Kentucky Fried Rat: Legends and Modern Society’. Journal of the Folklore Institute, 17 (2/3):222–243.
Fine, Gary Alan (1983): Shared Fantasy: Role-Playing Games as Social Worlds. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Fine, Gary Alan (1985): ‘Rumors and Gossiping’, in Teun Adrianus van Dijk (ed.): Discourse and Dialogue: Handbook of Discourse Analysis, Volume 3. London: Academic, pp. 223–237.
Fine, Gary Alan (1987a): With the Boys: Little League Baseball and Preadolescent Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Fine, Gary Alan (1987b): ‘Welcome to the World of AIDS: Fantasies of Female Revenge’. Western Folklore, 46 (3):192–197.
Fine, Gary Alan (1991): ‘On the Macrofoundations of Microsociology: Constraint and the Exterior Reality of Structure’. Sociological Quarterly, 32 (2):161–177.
Fine, Gary Alan (1992): Manufacturing Tales: Sex and Money in Contemporary Legends. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.
Fine, Gary Alan (1993): ‘The Sad Demise, Mysterious Disappearance, and Glorious Triumph of Symbolic Interactionism’. Annual Review of Sociology, 19:61–87.
Fine, Gary Alan (1995): ‘Public Narration and Group Culture: Discerning Discourse in Social Movements’, in Hank Johnston & Bert Klandermans (eds.): Social Movements and Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 127–143.
Fine, Gary Alan (1996): Kitchens: The Culture of Restaurant Work. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Fine, Gary Alan (1998): Morel Tales: The Culture of Mushrooming. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Fine, Gary Alan (2003): ‘Towards a Peopled Ethnography: Developing Theory from Group Life’. Ethnography, 4 (1):41–60.
Fine, Gary Alan (2004): Everyday Genius: Self-Taught Art and the Culture of Authenticity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Fine, Gary Alan (2007): Authors of the Storm: Meteorologists and the Culture of Prediction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Fine, Gary Alan (2012a): Tiny Publics: A Theory of Group Action and Culture. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Fine, Gary Alan (2012b): Sticky Reputations: The Politics of Collective Memory in Midcentury America. New York: Routledge.
Fine, Gary Alan (2013): ‘Sticky Cultures: Memory Publics and Communal Pasts in Competitive Chess’. Cultural Sociology, 7 (4):395–414.
Fine, Gary Alan (2015): Players and Pawns: How Chess Builds Community and Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Fine, Gary Alan & Bill Ellis (2010): The Global Grapevine: Why Rumors of Terrorism, Immigration and Trade Matter. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fine, Gary Alan & Brooke Harrington (2004): ‘Tiny Publics: Small Groups and Civil Society’. Sociological Theory, 22 (3):341–356.
Fine, Gary Alan, Brooke Harrington & Sandro Segre (2008): ‘Politics in the Public Sphere: The Power of Tiny Publics in Classical Sociology’. Sociologica, no. 1.
Fine, Gary Alan & Sherryl Kleinman (1979): ‘Rethinking Subculture: An Interactionist Analysis’. American Journal of Sociology, 85 (1):1–20.
Fine, Gary Alan & Laura Fischer Leighton (1993): ‘Nocturnal Omissions: Steps Toward a Sociology of Dreams’. Symbolic Interaction, 16 (2):95–104.
Fine, Gary Alan & Roberta Sassatelli (2010): ‘A Serial Ethnographer: An Interview with Gary Alan Fine’. Qualitative Sociology, 33:79–96.
Fine, Gary Alan & Gregory W. H. Smith (eds.) (2000): Erving Goffman (Four Volume Set) London: Sage Publications.
Fine, Gary Alan & Patricia A. Turner (2004): Whispers on the Color Line: Rumor and Race in America. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Goffman, Erving (1961a): Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books.
Goffman, Erving (1961b): Encounters: Two Studies in the Sociology of Interaction. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.
Goffman, Erving (1974): Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. New York: Harper & Row.
Goffman, Erving (1981): Forms of Talk. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Goffman, Erving (1983): ‘The Interaction Order: American Sociological Association, 1982 Presidential Address’. American Sociological Review, 48 (1):1–17.
Rosnow, Ralph L. & Gary Alan Fine (1976): Rumor and Gossip: The Social Psychology of Hearsay. New York: Elsevier.
Sandstrom, Kent L., Gary Alan Fine & Daniel D. Martin (2003): Symbols, Selves and Social Reality: A Symbolic Interactionist Approach to Social Psychology and Sociology. Los Angeles, CA: Roxbury Publishing Co.
Stolte, John, Gary Alan Fine & Karen Cook (2001): ‘Sociological Miniaturism: Seeing the Big Through the Small in Social Psychology’. Annual Review of Sociology, 27:387–413.
Turner, Patricia A. (1993): I Heard It Through the Grapevine: Rumor in African-American Culture. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bassetti, C., Sassatelli, R. (2017). Gary Alan Fine. In: Jacobsen, M. (eds) The Interactionist Imagination. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58184-6_15
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58184-6_15
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-58183-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-58184-6
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)