TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction: A Mesoworld - Gary Alan Fine
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226745831.003.0001
[Mesoworld;tiny publics;civic action;social life]
In this introduction, Fine describes and lays out a theory of the importance of mid-level group interactions. Despite the importance of group sociability as the basis of civic engagement, many sociological analyses of the structure of political engagement take one of two forms: either they examine how institutional structures set conditions for politics, erasing the individual, or they examine how individual attitudes and beliefs provide the basis for political decisions. While sociologists have long contributed to the meso-level analysis of civic culture, these two approaches—the macro and the micro—have dominated. In both, ongoing relations are marginalized and the links among local communities downplayed.Meso-level social ties, Fine argues, bring individual interest into a collective that addresses larger social institutions such as city or national governments. He describes these meso-level social collectives as “hinges”: groups that come together to pursue a shared social goal, bridging the distance between the individual and the social organizations that surround them. Fine argues that understanding these hinges is crucial to explaining how societies function, drawing links between individual interest and the large structures that govern our lives. (pages 1 - 24)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
1. Coordination: The Dynamics of Collaboration and Commitment - Gary Alan Fine
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226745831.003.0002
[coordination;commons;collaboration;groups;contact hypothesis]
Chapter One addresses Coordination, asking how people do things together. Coordination is essential for civic engagement, the commitment to an interaction order, and the production of a group culture. It is not that coordination inevitably depends on full consensus, but rather that individuals fit lines of action together. The negotiated order is part of politics from the ground up. Participants recognize that they share communal spaces and collaborate for mutual ends. This recognition—and the problems that ensue—is expressed in the problem (sometimes labeled the “tragedy”) of the Commons. How can citizens with private interests that might overload the carrying capacity of a system moderate their desires, satisfying but not maximizing individual outcomes in the name of communal survival? (pages 25 - 50)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
2. Relations: Friendship and the Politics of Sociability - Gary Alan Fine
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226745831.003.0003
[friendship;relations;sociability;elites]
Chapter Two, Relations, asserts that social order depends on the reality that people know each other in ways that produce mutual concern. Community relies on emotional connections and patterns of interpersonal selection. Often this involves friendship, but occasionally enmity as well. How do friendship and sociability create good citizens and, through them, the good society? How does hatred and resentment produce a politics of trouble? These relations allow for a nexus of public relationships, creating civil society. Of course, friendships also occur in undemocratic spaces, but, in such cases, they are often transacted outside a public sphere in secluded, hidden arbors such as kitchens and hearths (Goldfarb 2006; Scott 1998). Hatreds and betrayals can be more public in harsh political realms, but these are not my focus here. (pages 51 - 74)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
3. Association: Bonding, Banding, and Bridging - Gary Alan Fine
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226745831.003.0004
[Toqueville;associations;social movements;group culture;community]
Alexis de Tocqueville’s claims about the organization of American life underscores the salience of Associations, the topic of Chapter Three. Friendship is often organized and flourishes through recognizable structures. This is the virtue of associations. While associations exist in all sizes, I focus on those that constitute small groups in which participants recognize each other. While no precise limit exists for the optimal size of a group, once routine contacts—a shared and knowing culture—dissipate, the organization becomes bureaucratic. While large associations also depend on groups—boards of directors, committees, cells, or chapters—each of these interactional units becomes, in effect, an association with its own interaction order and group culture. This permits different types of social relations and encourages distinct social arrangements. Of course, small decision-making groups control large organizations, even if these groups are at some distance from rank-and-file supporters or dues-paying members. Extended associations operate through leadership circles and establish subsidiary groups, such as committees, that provide input for the decision-making process. When an extended association holds a mass meeting, a rally, or a demonstration, groups are found among both organizers and attendees. (pages 75 - 98)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
4. Place: Performance and Solidarity - Gary Alan Fine
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226745831.003.0005
[place;publics;town meetings;coffee houses;clubs]
Chapter Four, Place, analyzes how engaged communities depend on the affordances of public and private spaces. While one’s associates matter greatly, places shape interaction and culture, producing action fields. Some locales demand privacy. In contrast, public spaces are, at least in principle, open to all. The expectations of the interaction order results from understood proprieties in particular sites. Of course, spaces are never as open as they claim, but the commitment to the form of the gathering presumes an ideological openness, whatever limits prevent full participation in practice. (pages 99 - 124)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
5. Conflict: Scratching Consensus’s Veneer - Gary Alan Fine
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226745831.003.0006
[conflict;turmoil;disruption;politics;breakdown]
The fifth chapter, Conflict, corrects the impression that communities invariably produce consensual group cultures and an interaction order to which all are equally welcome. While tiny publics often share commitments, they may also be riven by division and conflict. Sometimes the conflict is lasting, causing ruptures, and, at other times, conflict merely results in temporary breaches and divergent perspectives. Accord is not inevitable and action circuits are not always smooth, particularly when interests and resources diverge. Groups that endure, despite internal differences, must manage dissent. (pages 125 - 148)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
6. Control: Patrolling Civil Society - Gary Alan Fine
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226745831.003.0007
[control;surveillance;police;government;groupthink]
Conflict and contention often lead to the desire by those confronted to react with surveillance and enforcement, the topic of Chapter Six, Control. How do challenged groups and threatened institutions respond? In systems of local authority, how is power deployed? How are options limited through the assertion of power on the local level? This constitutes a truncation of the interaction order. (pages 149 - 172)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
7. Extensions: Tiny Publics and Distant Worlds - Gary Alan Fine
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226745831.003.0008
[extensions;terrorism;social media;netroots;tiny publics]
Despite the importance of local civic spaces, political systems operate in larger domains, especially given technological changes that sponsor new media. Chapter Seven, Extensions, describes how a meso-analysis might extend behind the local. In such circumstances, face-to-face interaction is altered, creating new circuits of action. This is particularly true given the prominence of social media and cyber-connection that challenge traditional face-to-face interaction, altering the meaning of co-presence (Campos-Castillo and Hitlin 2013; Zhao 2003). New interaction orders are created as our understanding of what constitutes interaction has expanded. Social media require rethinking what it means to be together. Online communication with its strands of “friends” exposes the significance of affiliative ties, even if these ties do not involve face-to-face interaction, once considered the sine qua non of social psychology. Are tiny publics truly tiny if anyone can join with a mouse click? (pages 173 - 197)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Conclusion: Circuits of Action - Gary Alan Fine
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226745831.003.0009
[civil society;interaction order;group culture;circuits of action;tiny publics]
The conclusion, Chapter Eight, weaves together the book’s themes and concepts, arguing for a meso-level analysis drawing on culture, interaction, and structure. These are designed to provide a valuable and distinctive perspective on civil society through the core concepts of the interaction order, group culture, circuits of action, and tiny publics. Knitting civil society together through a set of locally-based meso-structures holds promise, even if, inevitably, loose threads abound. (pages 198 - 215)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Afterword: The COVID Hinge - Gary Alan Fine
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226745831.003.0010
[Zoom;in person interaction;lockdowns;COVID-19;virus]
The Afterword is a brief discussion of how the COVID-19 virus and the stay-at-home orders affect the analysis of interaction and group culture, in light of the absence of face-to-face interaction and prevalence of computer platforms of communication. (pages 216 - 220)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
