The construction of gender in informal face-to-face encounters
A theoretical and methodological reflection
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/sols.v4i2.485Keywords:
methodology, gender, social change, context, social fieldAbstract
In this article I argue that we need to treat what I call the “local fields of participation” in a methodologically systematic manner. These fields are the relatively stable domains of social participation if everyday life: family, school, clique, workplace and so on. The research on language and gender constitutes a good example of the need to build an adequate understanding of the reproduction and transformation of relations of domination. I also argue against the customary practice of making excessively direct inferences out of isolated interactions or out of very specific linguistic or pragmatic phenomena, which prevents an profound understanding of issues domination and contestation at the local level. Here I will provide data of interactions recorded amongst a group of young people and I will show how these can only be interpreted in terms of their position within the group’s set of relations, through which a given régime of gender identities were constructed, with its tensions and contradictions. This process of identity construction was in turn inserted in a wider network of relationships between the clique and various other fields (family, school, job market). Finally, I discuss some ways in which Pierre Bourdieu’s model can be used to analyze the workings of local fields and the relationships amongst social fields at various levels.
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