Social worlds are networks of interaction formed around shared activities or interests. They provide normative frameworks that shape interactions within the world and influence participants' identities. Individual psychobiographies, or life transitions and experiences, converge to (re)constitute specific social worlds over time. For example, asexuality social worlds emerged online as individuals discovered language to reinterpret experiences of lacking sexual attraction, previously seen as problematic, and to connect with others. Understanding how psychobiographical trajectories shape social worlds moves analysis beyond essentializing groups to consider temporal agency and diversity in sexuality.
2. Social Worlds
Social worlds are networks of interaction demarcated by their
participants' mutual involvement in specifiable sets of activities. They
form around sports, art forms and genres, pastimes, occupations,
locations, conflicts and controversies, and projects, anything that can
become a focus for collective interest and action. Worlds are networks
whose members manifest a shared orientated towards specific conventions
and common adherence to a shared framework of meaning. They are
generated by interaction but also function as a context and environment
which shapes interaction. As actors 'enter' a world, interacting with others
whom they recognize as members of it, they shift their orientation and
perhaps also their identity, thereby collaboratively with the other
(re)generating their part of that world. (Crossley 2010: 138)
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4. The nature of social worlds
Continually (re)constituted through interaction
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5. The nature of social worlds
Continually (re)constituted through interaction
Mediated interaction and/or face to face interaction
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6. The nature of social worlds
Continually (re)constituted through interaction
Mediated interaction and/or face to face interaction
Irreducible to territory though often (re)constituted
territorially
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7. The nature of social worlds
Continually (re)constituted through interaction
Mediated interaction and/or face to face interaction
Irreducible to territory though often (re)constituted
territorially
Provides normative frames of reference which
participants can use ‘outside’ the social world
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8. The nature of social worlds
Continually (re)constituted through interaction
Mediated interaction and/or face to face interaction
Irreducible to territory though often (re)constituted
territorially
Provides normative frames of reference which
participants can use ‘outside’ the social world
Fuzzily bounded but nonetheless experienced ‘inside’
and ‘outside’ or ‘inwards’/‘outwards’ facing interaction
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9. The nature of social worlds
Continually (re)constituted through interaction
Mediated interaction and/or face to face interaction
Irreducible to territory though often (re)constituted
territorially
Provides normative frames of reference which
participants can use ‘outside’ the social world
Fuzzily bounded but nonetheless experienced ‘inside’
and ‘outside’ or ‘inwards’/‘outwards’ facing interaction
Opens up the questions of temporal ‘entry’ and ‘exit’
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11. Myth of Cultural Integration
Specific conventions and common adherence to a
shared framework of meaning...?
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12. Myth of Cultural Integration
Specific conventions and common adherence to a
shared framework of meaning...?
Common tendency to conflate the ‘community’
and the ‘meaning’ in sociological understandings
of culture
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13. Myth of Cultural Integration
Specific conventions and common adherence to a
shared framework of meaning...?
Common tendency to conflate the ‘community’
and the ‘meaning’ in sociological understandings
of culture
Mistake to infer shared belief from shared practice
or vice versa
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14. Myth of Cultural Integration
Specific conventions and common adherence to a
shared framework of meaning...?
Common tendency to conflate the ‘community’
and the ‘meaning’ in sociological understandings
of culture
Mistake to infer shared belief from shared practice
or vice versa
If we accept this then subjectivity becomes crucial
to understanding reproduction and
transformation of social worlds
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17. Psychobiography
‘Entry’ and ‘exit’ into social worlds are temporal concepts.
Psychobiography as concept to recognize the “linked series of
evolutionary transitions” which unfold at “various significant
junctures in the lives of individuals” (Layder 1997: 47)
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18. Psychobiography
‘Entry’ and ‘exit’ into social worlds are temporal concepts.
Psychobiography as concept to recognize the “linked series of
evolutionary transitions” which unfold at “various significant
junctures in the lives of individuals” (Layder 1997: 47)
So how do people ‘enter’ and ‘exit’ social worlds?
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19. Psychobiography
‘Entry’ and ‘exit’ into social worlds are temporal concepts.
Psychobiography as concept to recognize the “linked series of
evolutionary transitions” which unfold at “various significant
junctures in the lives of individuals” (Layder 1997: 47)
So how do people ‘enter’ and ‘exit’ social worlds?
How does this manner of entry and exit (direction, meaning,
velocity) shape their participation in its (re)constitution?
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20. Psychobiography
‘Entry’ and ‘exit’ into social worlds are temporal concepts.
Psychobiography as concept to recognize the “linked series of
evolutionary transitions” which unfold at “various significant
junctures in the lives of individuals” (Layder 1997: 47)
So how do people ‘enter’ and ‘exit’ social worlds?
How does this manner of entry and exit (direction, meaning,
velocity) shape their participation in its (re)constitution?
Social worlds as emergent from particular configurations of
convergent psychobiographies
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23. Case Study: Asexuality
People “who do not experience sexual attraction”
Great deal of diversity underlying ‘umbrella definition’
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24. Case Study: Asexuality
People “who do not experience sexual attraction”
Great deal of diversity underlying ‘umbrella definition’
Online communities began to form 2001 onwards
(though some pre-history)
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25. Case Study: Asexuality
People “who do not experience sexual attraction”
Great deal of diversity underlying ‘umbrella definition’
Online communities began to form 2001 onwards
(though some pre-history)
Attracted much media attention which brings new
people into community
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26. Case Study: Asexuality
People “who do not experience sexual attraction”
Great deal of diversity underlying ‘umbrella definition’
Online communities began to form 2001 onwards
(though some pre-history)
Attracted much media attention which brings new
people into community
Online: forums, blogs, youtube, tumblr
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27. Case Study: Asexuality
People “who do not experience sexual attraction”
Great deal of diversity underlying ‘umbrella definition’
Online communities began to form 2001 onwards
(though some pre-history)
Attracted much media attention which brings new
people into community
Online: forums, blogs, youtube, tumblr
‘Offline’ meet-ups and activism
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29. Psychobiographical Convergence
Lack of sexual attraction (heterogenous across the
group) previously rendered situationally problematic
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30. Psychobiographical Convergence
Lack of sexual attraction (heterogenous across the
group) previously rendered situationally problematic
Both relations (“you’re just a late bloomer!”) and ideas
(“if I’m not sexual then I must be broken”) at work
here
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31. Psychobiographical Convergence
Lack of sexual attraction (heterogenous across the
group) previously rendered situationally problematic
Both relations (“you’re just a late bloomer!”) and ideas
(“if I’m not sexual then I must be broken”) at work
here
Discovery of the asexual social world: directly
(e.g.google etc) or indirectly (e.g. media article or
friend/acquaintance)
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32. Psychobiographical Convergence
Lack of sexual attraction (heterogenous across the
group) previously rendered situationally problematic
Both relations (“you’re just a late bloomer!”) and ideas
(“if I’m not sexual then I must be broken”) at work
here
Discovery of the asexual social world: directly
(e.g.google etc) or indirectly (e.g. media article or
friend/acquaintance)
Reappraisal of prior self-interpretation and assumption
of pathology
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35. Conclusion
Recognizing the independent variability of subjectivity
and refusing the homogenization of ‘sub-cultures’
Treating subjectivity in a way which foregrounds
temporality and agency
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36. Conclusion
Recognizing the independent variability of subjectivity
and refusing the homogenization of ‘sub-cultures’
Treating subjectivity in a way which foregrounds
temporality and agency
Moving from ‘groups’ to individuals, networks and social
worlds in sexuality studies. Getting beyond essentialism
debates.
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37. Conclusion
Recognizing the independent variability of subjectivity
and refusing the homogenization of ‘sub-cultures’
Treating subjectivity in a way which foregrounds
temporality and agency
Moving from ‘groups’ to individuals, networks and social
worlds in sexuality studies. Getting beyond essentialism
debates.
The crucial question: how do identifiable psychobiographical
trajectories shape the (re)constitution of specific social worlds?
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38. Conclusion
Recognizing the independent variability of subjectivity
and refusing the homogenization of ‘sub-cultures’
Treating subjectivity in a way which foregrounds
temporality and agency
Moving from ‘groups’ to individuals, networks and social
worlds in sexuality studies. Getting beyond essentialism
debates.
The crucial question: how do identifiable psychobiographical
trajectories shape the (re)constitution of specific social worlds?
Thoughts appreciated! This is plan for analysis yet to be
undertaken....
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