research issues and an interactionist theory of action

This article was downloaded by: [University of Calgary]On: 24 February 2013, At: 22:41Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House,37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Mind, Culture, and ActivityPublication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hmca20

Research issues and an interactionist theory of actionAnselm Strauss aa University of California, 18 Moore Place, San Francisco, CA, 94109Version of record first published: 01 Sep 2009.

To cite this article: Anselm Strauss (1995): Research issues and an interactionist theory of action, Mind, Culture, and Activity,2:1, 18-28

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10749039509524682

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematicreproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyoneis expressly forbidden.

The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contentswill be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses shouldbe independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims,proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly inconnection with or arising out of the use of this material.

http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hmca20

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10749039509524682

http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Research Issues and an Interactionist Theory of Action

ANSELM STRAUSSUniversity of California, San Francisco

This paper has been written in response to YrjO EngestrOm's generous invitation: write about yourresearch with regard to your theory of action and to issues and problems raised by the research. I willrepeat hardly any material from Continual Permutations of Action (CPA) (1993), yet make occasionalreference to i t The point chiefly illustrated will be the fusion of this interactionist theory of action withthe research itself, and some implications of the fusion. (The book itself is a formal—very general—theory and its implications for studies of a host of important phenomena, most of which my work hastouched on over the years.)

While in college, I avidly devoured a famous book by two philosophers of science, M.Cohen andE. Nagel, titledi4n Introduction to Logic and Scientific Method (1934). The logic part was boring butthe section on the Scientific Method fired my imagination—a vision of rational and controlled methodfor understanding the world's phenomena! Yet a reading of biographies about great scientists quicklytaught there was no one method. Each scientist inherited something valuable, perhaps vital, fromteachers and colleagues, but ended by developing his or her own style of working, of carrying outresearch. And so it has proved in my life too.

My style is a composite: assumptions absorbed from American Pragmatism, also sociologicalperspectives and fieldwork methods derived from Chicago interactionism (and social anthropology);each supplemented by research and personal experiences and by reading social science literature.Underlying the style is a personal view of human activity as both contingent and complex; therebyrequiring appropriate interpretative and analytic means for capturing at leastsome of this contingencyand complexity. Also, I would emphasize again how crucial it is to trust one's own personal andresearch experience—not to disregard it in favor of some supposed canons of "objectivity." (The earlyChicago approach and some of the current symbolic interactionist ones are consonant with both ofthose points.) Perhaps I should also admit a predilection for "studying the unstudied" (a phrase froman early paper on studying urban social relations [1967]), which implies strenuous efforts will not benecessary for extricating oneself from years, even decades, of research carried on from perspectivesusually different than one's own. While my research has focused on varied topics and areas, certainstylistic and analytic themes are constant or emerging over the years. The research has been varied:including studies of individual and collective identity, psychiatric ideologies and institutions, medicaltechnologies in hospitals, dying in hospitals, chronic illness, urban images, negotiation, bodyprocesses, professions, and above all "work." I have never had a planned or scheduled program. Therehas been a cumulative development in some central concepts (such as, identity, work, trajectory, socialworld, negotiation, and structural process.) Some of the research has been done in solo fashion, butmuch of it with closely working and highly valued co-researchers; especially, Rue Bucher, Juliet

18 Mind, Culture, and ActivityVolume 2, No. 1, Winter 1995

1074-9039/95/18-28 $1.00 © LCHC

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alga

ry]

at 2

2:41

24

Febr

uary

201

3

Corbin, Shizuko Fagerhaugh, Barney Glaser, Leonard Schatzman, Barbara Suczek and CarolynWeiner.1

Descriptively I will write here about its characteristic features, with a few illustrations from theresearch itself, and occasional reference to its sources. While I certainly don't claim those features areoriginal, no doubt the totality—whether you would regard it as consistent or eclectic—does reflect mywork.

Action

Social science perspectives rest on assumptions (and even systematic theories) about action.Many of those perspectives are deterministic, historically locating the all-important aspects of actionin sources like: the spirit of the age and other historical forces, or in geography, technology, socialclass, or various other elements of social structure.

The American Pragmatists had an explicit theory of action—though they didn't call it that—which stressed the active nature of humans. Yet itsaw them as meeting up with restraining conditionsthat are still at least partly open to shaping and reshaping by human actors. Dewey's writing embodiedthis stance and reiterated it in various philosophical and political contexts (cf., Human Nature andConduct, 1922). His early sociological admirers at the University of Chicago, W. I. Thomas andRobert Park, built a sociological version of the Deweyan ideas, especially emphasizing collectiveinteraction. G. H. Mead's similar Pragmatist approach (1934) influenced sociologists like HerbertBlumer in the 1920s, and then later generations of sociologists but especially the "symbolicinteractionists" after his death in 1933. Mead's contributions to sociology were primarily socialpsychological (inventing concepts still widely known, like role taking and the significant other) as wellas proffering profoundly influential views about the nature of self and self interaction (cf., Fisher &Strauss, 1978,1979a, 1979b; Strauss, 1956,1990).

I first came across Dewey's ideas when an undergraduate and absorbed them gratefully for theyfitted my own experience so closely. Then in graduate school I read Mead and found him addressingthe same and associated issues. This theory of action is neither deterministic nor non-deterministic,it is somewhere in between. Like activity theory, it is a mediated, dialectical, and historically situatedapproach. So when you read Chicagoans (i.e., sociologists in the Chicago tradition), even the currentgeneration of "Chicago derived" people, you are unlikely ever to find them adopting a deterministicposition. This is so even when, as is usual, they do not know this theory of action undergirds theirresearch (cf., Strauss, 1990, pp. 3-32 and 1993, pp. 2-3).

My contribution to this theory of action has perhaps several aspects. These are, first of all to renderit more explicit as a consistent and systematic (sociological) theory of action. The other points are,I believe, that I've made its features more complex and subtle, and added some important concepts thatappear as implications of the theory found in Continual Permutations of Action. Such concepts astrajectory, arc of work, social world, arena, body processes, identity, negotiated order, and structuralprocess were developed through research by co-workers and me. So, mostly those concepts arose fromlong and close examination of data where the data and substantive (or general) theory were examinedin their constant interplay (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss, 1970). As it has turned out, each of thoseconcepts has been elaborated in the successive research projects, though this mostly happened not byinitial intention but because our concepts fit the new data as well as the old.

Symposium: Research Issues & an Interactionist Theory of Action 19Anselm Strauss

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alga

ry]

at 2

2:41

24

Febr

uary

201

3

The concept of "trajectory' is an example. It was formulated in connection with explaining theorganizational and interactional aspects of work being done for and around hospitalized patientsduring the course of their dying. After intensive empirical research, we became aware of the centralnature of time in the dying process: hurrying, waiting, rhythms, interruptions, phases. The trajectoryconcept was designed to capture, besides such temporal features, the following—physical decline, theinteraction of staff and kin with the patients, the interaction of staff members themselves on the wardsand with personnel elsewhere in the hospital, as well as to analyze hospital conditions that affected allof this interaction (see Glaser & Strauss, 1965,1968; also Strauss & Glaser, 1970). Among the keyelements continued and elaborated when thinking about trajectories were: not only temporality buttypes and levels of interaction, reviewals of interaction, multiple actors and their perspectives, also thepersonnel's ever-present efforts to shape the courses of dying despite inevitable contingencies whichthey faced. When years later I wmtsContinental Permutations of Action, I found it useful to makethis concept and its subsidiary ones central to my interactionist theory of action. Much of my researchhas also focused on the phenomena of work, which I've always regarded as only a special butimmensely important form of action.

A concise statement in CPA summarizes my position about the use of this interactionist theoryof action:

. . . any action theory consists of a set of assumptions and related conceptualization. Both pertain notonly to (1) action and interaction but to (2) action and interaction in relation to a host of phenomena,and to (3) phenomena found at any level of organization, from the most macroscopic to the mostmicroscopic.... [An interactionist theory of action] is capable of thoroughly informing sociologicalperspectives so that one automatically thinks interactionally, temporally, processually, and structur-ally, as well as in the relatively complex ways ensured by the sociological assumptions built into thistheory of action (1993, pp. 13-14).

This position on action then means that it answers the questions implied about such issues as thedegree of determinism vis-a-vis action, the balance of human passivity and "shaping" of lives andenvironment, the importance of a theory of action whether implicit or explicit, and diverse views ofthe source of concepts "in" a theory of action. The position rests on a series of assumptions that pointto the basic relevance of interaction, body processes, "the" self temporality, processes and structuresans duality, and so on. High priority is also given to the significance of human work. (There are 16assumptions discussed in the first chapter of CPA.)

Multiple Actors and Their Perspectives

A second feature of my research is that in it action is never merely individual action but alwaysinvolves interaction with others and their interaction with each other. This is so even if the actors areabsent or, indeed, long since dead. Because of the phenomenon of multiple actors, significantinteraction is also developmental—it evolves over time, the consequences of previous phases oftenfolding back into the next interaction as relevant conditions for it. This temporality rests on the matterof contingency—a central assumption of the theory of action—the ever present possibility ofunpredictability in current and future interactions with those others. (And also the potentialunpredictability of one's own actions.) This is homologous with the sense in which previous actionsbecome materially mediating objects in activity theory.

Said another way: the actual and perceived actions of others enter into the action of eachinteractant, as with a zone of proximal development But the researcher has to ask "which actions?"


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alga

ry]

at 2

2:41

24

Febr

uary

201

3

And "what difference does this make to ongoing and future interactions?" Also, the researcher can'tsimply be satisfied with getting the viewpoint of two or three main actors, but must be concerned withall the influential actors relevant to the phenomenon under study. Who they are is not necessarilyknown or to be guessed at in advance. So, a researcher may begin a project with intuitions orhypotheses about potentially significant actors, but the most obvious ones are not necessarily amongthe most consequential. For instance, in one study of a psychiatric hospital, black nursing aides weremuch in evidence doing the things that aides ordinarily do—but not thought by the professionals tobe either privy to psychiatric knowledge or more than acting kindly to the patients. After many months,we researchers sensed that this was far too simple a picture of their "functions," so we carefullyinterviewed them. It then became evident that they had their own ideas about mental illness andregarded themselves as (unrecognized) helpers of these sick people (1964, pp. 228-261). In anothermonograph and paper (Strauss, 1985, pp. 191-209; 1982, pp. 977-986), we showed how and why thevastly underestimated and understudied population in hospitals, the patients, are crucial to thehospital's work and division of labor. Lest the general rule of'look for all the significant actors" seemtoo draconian, this should not be regarded as an absolute injunction, nor, indeed, a practicablepossibility. Sometimes researchers'circumstances do not permit as full an exploration or examinationas might be desirable: but at least, the theory of action and my research suggests this rule at least bean heuristic guideline.

Ultimately, the choice of whom to study and which of their actions to focus on—and in relationto each other—is up to the researcher. He or she has needs both to answer these questions and to weavethe answer into the overall analysis. Since we are not omniscient, later research may prove our accountdeficient for not catching every significant actor and all the relevant interactions.

A crucial point is that actors see themselves, or are seen as, representatives of collective positions.(This perception itself understandably generates a range of consequences.) So the interactions must,for the social scientist, frequently be regarded as taking place between and among representatives ofsuch positions. I would emphasize here that representation is a complex phenomenon (see 1993,chapter 7, pp. 170-190). One of the summary statements in CPA about representation is worth quotinghere to underline that actors themselves are guided by their actions by (mis) perceptions and (corrector incorrect) imaginations of others' representations—as well as acting out their own.

Representation, misrepresentation, and associated phenomena are integral to interaction. They havetheir grounding in our abilities to symbolize, and to develop personal and collective identities....Members of collect!vties of all kinds may choose to act as representatives...; they also may be chosenor requested to do so; and they may be thought by outsiders to represent one even when this is not true.(1963, p. 169)

So, researchers must get these matters too into their analyses or run the risk of misreading oroversimplifying their explanations of action.

No doubt there is always danger of overlooking some important actors and types of action. Thisis why I have tended to use field observations rather than rely only on interviews or documents;although quite obviously the latter methods can lead to actors and actions not anticipated initially bythe researcher. Getting multiple perspectives gives some, though not perfect, protection against one'sown biases and against going "native" with only one or another of the actors' perspectives.

One last point in this particular discussion: because actors' viewpoints are so often discrepant,with resulting interactional stress and conflict, theconcept of "arena" (1993, pp. 225-243) has seemed

Symposium: Research Issues & an Interactionist Theory of ActionAnselm Strauss

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alga

ry]

at 2

2:41

24

Febr

uary

201

3

to me an indispensable one. (Arena refers to "interaction by social worlds around issues—whereactions concerning these are being debated, fought out, negotiated, manipulated, and even coercedwithin and among social worlds" [1993, p. 226]). This concept allows us to look at this crucial aspectof interaction, no matter how massive (as in large scale policy arenas or in international movements)or microscopic, with the same revealing conceptual focus of conflict over issues.

In the immediately foregoing pages, these are among the issues raised or implied: (1) Themaximizing chances of capturing the complexities of phenomena via searching for multiple actors andtheir perspectives, and simultaneously minimizing probabilities of going native or succumbing toone's own biases; (2) the representational and symbolic aspects of behavior are assumed to beproblematic to outsiders,2 including the researcher, and require focused study for they will be centralto understanding the phenomena under study. In general, then, the position enjoins careful examina-tion of interaction for much more complexity than is ordinarily assumed by social scientists.

Theory and Theorizing

We come next to several hotly related questions about theory and theorizing. What is theory?What forms does it take? How is theory discovery, formulation and "verification" best done? Do weneed theory anyhow for understanding social phenomena?

Since I am perhaps better known for my answers to such questions than my actual theorizing, Ican't help, here, but to repeat myself somewhat. Theory to me, in the broadest sense, is one of the mosteffective means for understanding phenomena. When studying human behavior, one has to interpretwhat one sees, hears, overhears, discovers, ferrets out, is told, reads. Analysis of data, of all kinds, canlead to theory if the data are systematically conceptualized. I don't think of social science theory asbeing essentially different than physical or biological theory, except for the "human coefficient"(Znaniecki, 1934)—the thinking, speaking, feeling, valuing, self-reflecting human—that has to betaken centrally into account in our theorizing.

As my colleague Leonard Schatzman notes, we all think theoretically, in some sense, when weclassify situations, actions, actors, objects, and we do this somewhat systematically if implicitly. WhatI greatly value about theories is that when conceptualizing is carefully and systematically done, andgrounded in equally careful and systematic collection of data, then this conceptualization can give adeep understanding of our subject matters. Theory, then, consists of systematic relating of concepts,grounded in data. Theory is certainly not the only means for expressing our interpretations andunderstandings nor even the only form of analysis. But it can be a powerful means. And so, I don'tsettle in my research for just description, or for ethnographic accounts, nor even for detailed theme orinteractional analysis—useful as these all are for other purposes. What I have advocated, taught, andexemplified in research publication is a style of writing that is highly conceptualized (the monographindexes usually list many /witedconcepts), and yet it gives the impression of being vividly descriptivebecause it embodies many descriptions of scenes and actions along with quoted material fromfieldnotes and interviewees.

In the most general sense, a "grounded" researcher's theory is grounded in the highly relatedactivities of collecting data, thinking about the data, interpreting them, formulating the thoughts intoexplicit or implicit hypotheses and propositions, and checking back with new data or the reexaminationof old data. I say "in a general sense" because the description is far too schematic: it makes the manyand interlocked activities too linear and somewhat too rational, doesn't touch on differences in phases


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alga

ry]

at 2

2:41

24

Febr

uary

201

3

of the research, and so on. It also skips lightly over the issue of "induction and deduction."Unfortunately, the original formulation of grounded theory vaDiscovery ofGroundedTheory(l96T)oversimplified this issue, because of our argument for theory grounded in data—our chief enemies atthe time being preconceived theories and a type of quantitative research that depended on these. Sincethe book's publication, and because of its continued citation, this methodology tend to be linked withthe advocacy of a purely inductionist position. But induction without deduction, and vice versa, makesno sense whatever. And as we have long since written, a good grounded theory is a perfectly good placefrom which to take off (Strauss, 1970, pp. 46-54; Corbin & Strauss, 1990); or to use in one's study,providing it appears to fit what your data and your own hypotheses are telling you.

For this reason I tell students they obviously can't ignore the theoretical literature "in your head"and which they carry into the research—nor would wish to, since this adds to their theoreticalsensitivity—nevertheless they need to be very cautious about using it explicitly until finished with theinitial phases of a study. Only then is it relatively safe to test out literature against one's own senseof the phenomenological reality. Consider also that previous studies are always based on a situation-bound data; they can not have conceivably been done in a situational vacuum. This means theirhypotheses and propositions need to be carefully analyzed for the specific conditions that undoubtedlyare related to the reported findings or hypotheses. Perhaps they are actually true, but not for theconditions giving rise to your data? Or only some of these data?

There is also the question of what kinds of theory can be written. Conventionally, social scientistsmake a distinction between substantive and more general (of varying degrees of abstraction) theory.American sociologists who teach courses in "social theory" rely mostly on the writings of Durkheim,Marx and Weber, and perhaps also Parsons or Schuetz (and these days on some of the post-structuralists such as Derrida and Foucault). They do not talk much about substantive theory; this isdiscussed in topical classes on the family, ethnicity, social class, drug addition, delinquency, and soon. Butsubstanceandsubstantivetheoryiswhatmostpractitionerresearchersworkat,andwhattheypublish and talk about at conferences and meetings. It is such substantive theory that practitioners,educators and researchers in practitioner fields (education, nursing, business, clinical psychology,evaluation and policy) draw upon when they find sociology useful. There is not much market for moregeneral types of theory, I suspect, even among sociologists?

Sometimes "grounded theory" is confused with "analytic induction." The latter methodology,originally formulated by Ananiecki (1934) and by Lindesmith and exemplified in hisOpiate Addiction(1947), is based on the idea of universal propositions. In analytic induction, when new data are found,these may provide either supporting or negative evidence; and if the latter, then the universal isdisproved. So Lindesmith began with the proposition that opium was biologically addictive toeveryone but only under certain conditions; he fleshed out his theory as a social-plus biological onewhen he had to explain why some people never became addicts despite being on opiates for longperiods (as with war injuries). Lindesmith was a close friend and colleague of mine: I used to arguethat his approach was not feasible for illuminating most social science phenomena, and that it didn'ttake variability into account. No variation, no richness of interpretation! (See the remarks onvariability in the next section.)

Perhaps a useful way of concluding this discussion of theory is to illustrate some of these points.Many years ago, Barney Glaser and I published Awareness of Dying (1965), from the study ofhospitalized dying alluded to earlier. We formulated a theory that involved specifying and relatingfour types of context that involved knowledge that the patient either had or didn't have of his or her

Symposium: Research Issues & an Interactionist Theory of ActionAnselm Strauss

23

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alga

ry]

at 2

2:41

24

Febr

uary

201

3

own dying. The contexts were: closed, suspicious, mutual pretense, and open. This substantive theorynot only specified conditions for the characteristic interaction "within" each context, and its frequentconsequences, but also specified conditions that might change one context into another. Thissubstantive theory was based on examination of numerous informal interviews and countless eventsobserved in many hospitals, including abroad (through informal research done there).

From this substantive theory one could easily make a leap to a more general level of theorizing,writing not just about the situation of dying patients but referring to many other types of "keeping asecret"—governmental and industrial spy systems, wayward spouses, and so on. Such extrapolation,though it has its uses because suggestive and presumably sometimes accurate, will not lead togrounded general theory. To do this, as we argued many years ago (1967, pp. 32-35 and 80-90), oneneeds to systematically analyze comparative cases drawn from many substantive areas. Life is full ofsecrets, lies, and misrepresentations, well intentioned if also frequently malevolent. A general theoryof awareness context (I am currently writing on this) would utilize the usual grounded theoryprocedures of constant comparisons and theoretical sampling, theoretical coding vis a vis groundedconcepts, and their interpretation. It would, after thorough cross-cultural analysis, presumably applyto all conditions bearing on non-disclosure, disclosure, and similar forms of "awareness" interaction.

My position about theory and theorizing appears different than one often taken toward a clusterof issues. These include: the nature of theory, the degree of its relevance for social science, its levels,its relationship to data, how theorizing as an activity is best done, and so on. The Pragmatist-interactionist theory of action certainly does not require such an emphasis on theorizing nor to myspecific position about the associate issues. Yet, without the action theory I'd never have reached thatposition, and the research would look very different.

Variation, Constant Comparison and Theoretical Sampling

In the early Chicago tradition of Thomas and Park, the research aim was to get at the basic process,pattern or type of activity. Although the work was empirical and descriptive details mattered, theywere subsidiary to the main effort. In the effort to get the basic abstract story, the "big picture,"professors taught students also to look for variations like sub-variations and sub-types or actors andrelationships, and to note other variations pertaining to social class or ethnicity. But what counted mostwere data bearing on phenomena like "the marginal man," the race relations cycle and the persistenceof racial discrimination.

The important news about immigration to America in the 1920s was, for example, the large-scaleprocesses of accommodation, conflict and assimilation. These concepts translated descriptively intothe specifics of immigrant experience: departing from the homeland and arriving at the new, living inethnic ghettos, establishing mutual aid societies and other institutions, accommodating to Americanways, and in some degree becoming Americanized via the assimilation process.

In such descriptions, plenty of variations were noted: women were less likely to learn English orlearn it more slowly; some immigrants had no kin preceding them but others did; some had moremarketable skills, and so on. Yet for Chicagoans, as for many if not most social scientists today, suchvariations were of far less importance—and received less attention—except, for example, in studiesthat focused on sub-types or the influence of different variables.


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alga

ry]

at 2

2:41

24

Febr

uary

201

3

The research style reflected in my methodological writing emphasizes the great importance ofconceptual variation, and the research does attempt systematically to link variations with the mainconceptual story. This emphasis derives, in part, from early reading of Darwin, who would examinethe variations in the same species as they grew under a host of different conditions—up in the Andesand down in the hot valleys. All those variations he not only noted but built into his theories.

Darwin aside, this is exactly what good science manages to do. Darwin's lesson for me was toseek out and specify variable conditions bearing on varieties of interaction, link these with associatedconsequences and build it all into the theory. Thus, in a study of medical technology in hospitals, wetalk of various dimensions of machines (small/large, movable/immovable, expensive/cheap) and wediscuss different types of work (technical, comfort, sentimental, etc.). These differences, however,become related in a central scaffolding (Strauss, 1985) and also unfolded in an overarching theorywhose main concepts are "work" and "trajectories."

This basic stance toward specifying and relating variable conditions and consequences leads towhat we have termed "constant comparison" (see for the original discussion, Glaser & Strauss, 1967,pp. 101-116). Making such comparisons is guided at first by hunch and "feel," and "intuition," butlater largely by theoretical sampling. We believe these procedures are at the very heart of "theoreticalcoding" and the development of grounded theory. The upshot is another characteristic of my researchwhich is conceptual density—the coining of many relevant concepts and relating them systematicallyto each other and to the main concept of the particular study. (There are many examples of boththeoretical sampling and constant comparison in our monographs.)

One additional point is worth particular emphasis: the making of these constant comparisonsamounts to a fluid, flexible activity. This is the very antithesis of research where two or morevariables—often not arising from the research itself—are contrasted, useful as this may often be. Theconstant comparison mode characteristically renders research quite "open." Though verification isbuilt into the work in iterative fashion, the principal concern is for discovery, creativity, and generalopenness in the research experience. The research project is conceived of as in process: It develops,as a set of activities that evolve. So do most of its concepts and their implications. Research is fullof surprises—even including small ones during the writing. Research is also fun although at heart veryserious.

This section is an extension of the last one, on theory and theorizing. The main issue addressedis a variant of the question: What is the nature of theory? The answer given rests on a conception aboutthe great significance of variability (in relationship again to the complexity of phenomena). Thesubsidiary question pertains to how to capture and build variability into theories.

Analytic Order

There is a corollary to both the canon of "get all the significant actors" and the canon of "buildin the conceptual specificity and variability." This corollary can be expressed as: "Action occurswithin a matrix of conditions arising at many different levels of organizations—details of this matrix(and the consequences of the action under study) requires careful consideration."

This is a complex analytic enterprise because conditions can be of varying substantive character(economic, political, religious, occupations...) as well as of varying scope (international, national,occupation, organizational, sub-organizational, interpersonal).


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alga

ry]

at 2

2:41

24

Febr

uary

201

3

The same is true of the consequences of interaction. Also, the interaction itself can vary in areaand scope. Significant interactions usually occur more than once; this means some consequences laterwill enter as conditions into the subsequent interactions—not necessarily the immediately next ones,nor necessarily into the interactions within the same area and scope as those that previously broughtabout those consequences-now-conditions. In order to arrive at explanations of phenomena, choicesinevitably must be made from among innumerable potential conditions and consequences. Thosechoices amount to the process of ordering that constitutes "analysis."

Plausible analysis, I have believed, begins with an implicit or explicit choice of a perspective, alsoinvolves choices of an area and of the interactions on which to focus, the scope of problems to study,problems to pursue, dimensions to work out, concepts to conceive of, etc. An additional analytic taskis somehow to find connections among the various conditions—and perhaps clusters of conditions—so as to weave them into a consistent explanatory story. This analytic task is rendered more difficultbecause the conditions affecting interaction may have sources in quite different areas than the actualinteractions that seem central to the phenomenon under study. Such interactions may concern, forexample, race relations whereas the conditions stem from "the market" or "local politics" ororganizational and sub-organizational relationships Furthermore, the conditions may be broader ornarrower in scope than the interactions under study: thus, while specific interactions reflecting genderdiscrimination might be traceable to broader conditions (i.e., widespread national values aboutmasculinity), they might also be traceable to narrower conditions (i.e., presumed masculine virtuesthat legitimate personal dislike between men and women workers in the same organization).

To return to the opening lines of this section: with the complexity of the analytic task in mind,Juliet Corbin and I (1990, pp. 161-172; also 1993, pp. 60-65) developed the concept of "conditionalmatrix." The matrix helps to guide one's choices, to trace and to specify the connections. Socialscientists very frequently seem to settle for far fewer important conditions than they should, becauseof a focus on either standard—often rhetorically loaded—items like class, power, gender, or as inorganizational studies, the standard organizational items like efficiency and influence. And they don'tnecessarily think of conditions at all levels of action: that is, they reduce the scope of the relevantconditions. Also, they often speculate about the linkages or simply use the larger structural andconditional conditions ("macro" ones) as background, leaving their readers to make the interpretativeconnections.

There are a couple of additional important points. First, phenomena and related interaction changeover time, so the affecting conditions and resulting consequences also change. If a researcher isinterested in these changes, then the new linkages must be traced down, specified, and orderedanalytically in relation to the old ones. Second, the lines of impact can run not only from the broader,more macro conditions, but vice versa—and at every level of scale and scope.

What this approach adds up to is a rejection of today's fashionable dualistic concepts of macroand micro levels. It also leads to a refusal to take seriously the various efforts to bridge this spuriousdichotomy of reified concepts. In a very general sense, also, the approach again proclaims thecomplexity of life and action, so demands methodological stances and tools appropriate to that It notincidentally, also, underlines how an interactionist theory of action, implied in the very idea of theconditional matrix, becomes an integral ingredient in the research itself.


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alga

ry]

at 2

2:41

24

Febr

uary

201

3

Notes

Correspondence regarding this article should be addressed to Anselm Strauss, 18 Moore Place, SanFrancisco, CA 94109.

1 All of these co-workers are, except Glaser, ex-students of mine. Among other ex-students, with whom I haveworked closely on their materials, who have also contributed much to my own thinking are especially: KatyCharmaz, Adele Clarke, Joan Fujimura, Susan Leigh Star, and also for a time Elihu Gerson. People overseas whohave been very important to my developing ideas in later years, though not in joint research: Isabelle Baszanger,Richard Grathoff, Alexander Metraux, Fritz Schuetze and Hans-George Soeffner.

2 I note that this concept in turn is problematic and complex! (Cf.. Star. 1991).

3 Recently I used the occasion of an invited address to talk to a group of symbolic interactionists abut the valueof general theory, when grounded in comparative analysis of data drawn from many substantive areas. I talked,too, about how physical and biological scientists used these kinds of theories, effectively and with greaterflexibility. I don't doubt my audience would have much preferred a more substantive—even a rhetorical—talk.This talk will be published as "Notes on the Nature of Development of General Theories," forthcoming inQualitative Inquiry.

References

Cohen, M., & Nagel, E. (1934). An introduction to logic and scientific method. New York: Harcourt & Brace.Dewey, J. (1922). Human nature and conduct. New York: Holt.Fisher, B., & Strauss, A. (1978). "Interactionism." A history of sociological analysis. T.Bottomore & R. Nisbet,

(Eds.). New York: Basic Books.Fisher, B.. & Strauss, A. (1979a). George Herbert Mead and the Chicago traditions of sociology, Part 1. Symbolic

Interaction. 2 (1), 9-26.Fisher, B., & Strauss, A. (1979b). George Herbert Mead and the Chicago tradition of sociology, Part 2. Symbolic

Interaction. 2 (2), 9-9.Glaser, B. (1978). Theoretical sensitivity. Mill Valley, CA: Sociology Press.Glaser, B., & Strauss, A. (1965). Awareness of dying. Chicago: Aldine.Glaser, B., & Strauss, A. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory. Chicago: Aldine.Glaser, B., & Strauss, A. (1968). Time for dying. Chicago: Aldine.Lindesmith, A. (1947). Opiate addiction. Bloomington, IN: Principia Press.Mead, G. (1934). Mind, self and society. Chicago: University of Chicago.Star, S. L. (1991). Power, technologies and the phenomenology of standards: On being allergic to onions. In

J. Law (Ed.), A sociology of monsters? Power, technology and the modem world. Sociological ReviewMonograph, No. 38. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Strauss, A. (1956). George Herbert Mead on social psychology. Chicago: University of Chicago. (1964, 2ndedition). (1978, 3rd edition).

Strauss, A. (1959). Mirrors and masks. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Reprinted in paperback, 1969. San Francisco:Sociology Press.

Strauss, A. (1967). Strategies for discovering urban theory. In L. Schnore & H. Fagin (Eds.), Urban researchand policy planning. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

Strauss, A. (1970). Discovering new theory from previous theory. In T. Shibutani (Ed.), Human nature andcollective behavior, (pp. 46-53). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Strauss, A. (1990). The Chicago tradition's ongoing theory of action/interaction. Creating sociologicalawareness. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.

Strauss, A. (1993). Continual permutations of action. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alga

ry]

at 2

2:41

24

Febr

uary

201

3

Strauss, A. (forthcoming). Notes on the nature and development of general theories. Qualitative Inquiry.Strauss, A., Bucher, R., Ehrlich, D., Schatzman, L., & Sabshin, M. (1964). Psychiatric ideologies and institutions.

Glencoe, IL: Free Press.Strauss, A., & Corgin, J. (1990). Basics of qualitative method. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.Strauss, A., Fagerhaugh, Suzeck, B., & Weiner, C. (1954). The organization of medical work. Chicago, IL:

University of Chicago.Strauss, A., Fagerhaugh, Suzeck, B., & Weiner, C. (1982). The work of hospitalized patients. Social Science

and Medicine, 16, 977-986.Strauss, A., & Glaser, B. (1970). Anguish. San Francisco, CA: Sociology Press.Znaniecki, F. (1934). The method of sociology. New York: Farrar & Rinehard. (Reissued, 1968, New York:

Octagon.)


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alga

ry]

at 2

2:41

24

Febr

uary

201

3

research issues and an interactionist theory of action

Documents