Interactionism

'Atkinson and Housley have produced a book that is a very competent, interesting and useful addition to other work in the field. Its distinctive contribution for me, lies in the exploration of the relationship between, and developments within interactionist sociologies' - Sociology

What is symbolic interactionism? This refreshing and authoritative book provides readers with:

· A guide to the essential thinking, research and concepts in interactionism

· A demonstration of the use of the interactionist approach

· An explaination of why the interactionist influence has not been fully acknowledged in Britain.

The authors argue that few sociologists in Britain have identified themselves with symbolic interactionism, even though many have engaged with interactionist ideas in their research and methodological work. We are all interactionists now, in the sense that many of the key ideas of interactionism have become part of the mainstream of sociological thought. Currently fashionable approaches to sociology display a kind of collective amnesia. A good deal of today's ideas that are presented as 'novel' or 'innovative' only appear so because earlier contributions - interactionism among them - are not explicitly acknowledged.

'Atkinson and Housley have produced a book that is a very competent, interesting and useful addition to other work in the field. Its distinctive contribution for me, lies in the exploration of the relationship between, and developments within interactionist sociologies' - Sociology

What is symbolic interactionism? This refreshing and authoritative book provides readers with:

• A guide to the essential thinking, research and concepts in interactionism

• A demonstration of the use of the interactionist approach

• An explaination of why the interactionist influence has not been fully acknowledged in Britain.

The authors argue that few sociologists in Britain have identified themselves with symbolic interactionism, even though many have engaged with interactionist ideas in their research and methodological work. We are all interactionists now, in the sense that many of the key ideas of interactionism have become part of the mainstream of sociological thought. Currently fashionable approaches to sociology display a kind of collective amnesia. A good deal of today's ideas that are presented as 'novel' or 'innovative' only appear so because earlier contributions - interactionism among them - are not explicitly acknowledged.

Paul Atkinson is a Distinguished Research Professor in Sociology at Cardiff University, where he is also Associate director of the ESRC Centre for Economic and Social Aspects of Genomics. His recent publications include: Everyday Arias: An Operatic Ethnography, Risky Relations (Katie Featherstone, Aditya Bharadwaj, Paul Atkinson and Angus Clarke) and the third edition of Ethnography: Principles in Practice (Martyn Hammersley and Paul Atkinson). His new book, written with Sara Delamont and William Housley is Contours of Culture and was published by AltaMira early in 2008. He and Sara Delamont edit the Journal of Qualitative Research.