Derek Layder - Structure, Interaction and Social Theory (RLE Social Theory)

ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS: SOCIAL THEORY

Volume 79

STRUCTURE, INTERACTION AND SOCIAL THEORY

DEREK LAYDER

First published in 1981

This edition first published in 2015
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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1981 Derek Layder

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ISBN: 978-0-415-72731-0 (Set)
eISBN: 978-1-315-76997-4 (Set)
ISBN: 978-1-138-78260-0 (Volume 79)
eISBN: 978-1-315-76323-1 (Volume 79)

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STRUCTURE, INTERACTION AND SOCIAL THEORY

Derek Layder

ROUTLEDGE & KEGAN PAUL LIMITED
London, Boston and Henley

I wish to express my thanks to David Field and Ivan Waddington for their comments upon papers which were earlier drafts, of what now constitutes of this book. I also owe a special debt of gratitude to Chris Dandeker and John Scott, both of whom read a great deal of the manuscript and gave me the benefit of their comments and suggestions: only they will realize how much their ideas have influenced mine, although, of course, I have no wish to implicate them in any of the shortcomings which this book may possess. I should also like to express my gratitude to Silvana di Gregorio who has been a constant source of inspiration and support. Finally, but not least, I should like to thank Mrs Doreen Butler, whose perceptive interventions transformed my initial draft into presentable typescript.

Parts of of this book first appeared in the British Journal of Sociology, and are reproduced here by permission of the editors and the publishers, Routledge & Kegan Paul.

This book addresses the problem of what constitutes an adequate theoretical and substantive account of social interaction. The thesis I present is that an adequate account must come to terms with the fact that society and its constituent elements are preconstituted and objective structures which constrain interaction, whilst recognizing that interaction itself has its own emergent properties and structures which are also influential in determining its course. Stated in a slightly different way, my argument is concerned to demonstrate that the fact that human beings possess certain creative capacities, interactive skills and intentions which in some sense enable them to apprehend, come to terms with, and sometimes even fashion, the social realities in which they are routinely engaged is by no means compromised by the parallel idea that interaction is also governed by external constraining structures.

To situate the above thesis, I argue that attempts to account for interaction have taken roughly three (stereotypical) forms, all of which suffer from certain inadequacies (although some variants of these contain formidable contributions in this area, as will be made clear later). The first type of account concentrates upon the internal dynamics of interaction to the exclusion of important external elements. This internal type of analysis has many variants but is most readily exemplified by social psychology. A second kind of account is one which concentrates exclusively on the external, preconstituted constraints upon interaction and thus vitiates the importance of interactive emergents (for example, sociological functionalism). Both these forms of explanation are lopsided because they do not make a fundamental ontological differentiation of the social world which brings both preconstituted constraints and interactional emergents into an articulated and ongoing relationship. The final type of account directly collapses such a dualism by suggesting that it is false, and that in reality external and internal features of action are dialectically synthesized. (There is no definite school of thought involved here - I will deal with specific authors later.) The main problem with this approach, as I will argue in detail later, is that it mistakenly and unwittingly accords primacy to the productive capacities of individuals in the development and emergence of the conditions under which they act.

Thus my own argument, as stated in the opening paragraph, seeks to reconstitute the inherent but unacknowledged dualism of the first and second of the arguments referred to in the preceding although a continuing argument of the book is that rational forms of proof are a necessary prerequisite to a comprehensive theory of interaction, that is, one which is not exclusively tied to an empiricist theory of knowledge (and thus arbitrarily restricted). Conversely, I argue that purely rational criteria would similarly impose another set of restrictions on the kind of knowledge which is considered valid or admissible. In connection with this latter point, I have tried to underline the importance of the empirical demonstration of the efficacy of the epistemological position I adopt by providing substantive illustrations of the theoretical schema which I develop from the area of work and occupations.

As a corollary to the above points, some preliminary remarks on some key terms used in this book may be of use. The two most important terms in this respect are interaction and structure, and although I am here separating out these two terms, it should be emphasized that this in no way implies that interaction is not structured (a point which I shall elaborate below). First, then, the term interaction (which I shall go on to define in detail in It is important in this respect to return to more specifically sociological points of reference and to consider the interactive process as presupposing, and indeed depending upon, social contexts of enactment.