Making Social Life:  Theories of Action and Meaning
Chapter 18 Summary

This chapter has as its starting point how people create and re-create social life. It deals with fundamental issues such as how far we can take charge of remaking our own social lives and identities and the nature of social identity in the contemporary world. It explores these issues by examining a range of contrasting theories that address issues of action, meaning and language, including symbolic interactionism, phenomenology and ethnomethodology, and assessing how these conceive of the processes whereby actors are shaped by society. It then considers the nature of social action and the creative construction of social life by action in settings. Towards its end, the chapter's emphasis shifts to language and discourse as the keys to social life.