RETHINKING CONSTRUCTIONIST AGENCY: CLAIMSMAKERS AS CONDITIONS, AUDIENCES, TYPES AND SYMBOLS

Abstract

The constructionist framework for analyzing social problems rests upon the concept of “claimsmakers” who engage in definitional activities. Published researches often approach claimsmakers as agents who speak social problems into existence by naming and typifying putative conditions. This established usage fails to consider several important issues. First, claimsmakers are not merely detached interpreters but are themselves implicated in conditions. Claimsmakers, moreover, are not only speakers who deliver social-problem monologues but are also audiences that engage in dialogue with other claimsmakers. Furthermore, claimsmakers are not only the authors of social problems discourse, but are also its objects in two senses. First, they appear as positive or negative typifications in their own discourse and that of others. Second, claimsmakers sometimes emerge as special symbols that are subsequently available as resources for future social-problems discourse. These considerations indicate that the constructionist framework and empirical researches may be improved through recognition of the dialectic of claimsmakers as both speakers and audiences, both agents and objects – indeed as functioning simultaneously in all these capacities. Ultimately, claimsmakers’ influence may result from having been transformed into generalizable symbols. Their agency, paradoxically, may succeed because of their objectification.

Citation

Nichols, L.T. (2003), "RETHINKING CONSTRUCTIONIST AGENCY: CLAIMSMAKERS AS CONDITIONS, AUDIENCES, TYPES AND SYMBOLS", Studies in Symbolic Interaction (Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 26), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 125-145. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0163-2396(02)26010-X