Robert Prus
Biographic Data
| ID | 137678 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Robert Prus |
| GIVEN NAMES | Robert |
| FAMILY NAME | Prus |
| SIGNATURE | PRUS R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Waterloo |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9310-974X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 81 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 398 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 81 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1975 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Influence Work, Resistance, and Educational Life-Worlds: Quintilian’s [Marcus Fabius Quintilianus] (35-95 CE) Analysis of Roman Oratory as an Instructive Ethnohistorical Resource and Conceptual Precur…
Despite the striking affinities of classical Greek and Latin rhetoric with the pragmatist/interactionist analysis of the situated negotiation of reality and its profound relevance for the analysis of human group life more generally, few contemporary social scientists are aware of the exceptionally astute analyses of persuasive interchange developed by Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian. Having considered the analyses of rhetoric developed by Aris…
Religion, Platonist Dialectics, and Pragmatist Analysis: Marcus Tullius Cicero’s Contributions to the Philosophy and Sociology of Divine and Human Knowing
Whereas Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Augustine are probably the best known of the early Western philosophers of religion, Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE) also played a particularly consequential role in the development and continuity of Greco-Latin-European social thought. Cicero may be best known for his work on rhetoric and his involvements in the political intrigues of Rome, but Cicero’s comparative examinations of the Greco-Roman philoso…
Redefining the Sociological Paradigm: Emile Durkheim and the Scientific Study of Morality
Whereas Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) has long been envisioned as a structuralist, quantitative, and positivist sociologist, some materials that Durkheim produced in the later stages of his career—namely, Moral Education (1961 [1902-1903]), The Evolution of Educational Thought (1977 [1904-1905]), The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1915 [1912]), and Pragmatism and Sociology (1983 [1913-1914]) attest to a very different conception of sociolog…
The Intellectual Canons of a Public Sociology: Pragmatist Foundations, Historical Extensions, and Humanly Engaged Realities 1
This chapter considers the intellectual canons of public sociology draws notably on symbolic interactionism. It describes briefly some aspects of what is been termed "public sociology". Some sociologists might claim that they already know enough and that it is time to emphasize remedial, moral, or activist related objectives. The chapter focuses on a public sociology not only is one in which authenticity is emphasized, but also one that is empiri…
Charisma, Magic, and Spirituality as Socially Engaged Processes: Lucian’s (circa 120-200) “Alexander the False Prophet” and People’s Accounts of the Supernatural
Focusing on Alexander the False Prophet and The Lover of Lies, two texts from the Greek poet-philosopher Lucian of Samosata (circa 120-200) of the Classical Roman era, this paper considers (a) charisma, magic, and spirituality as aspects of an interconnected, collectively achieved, developmental process associated with the emergence of a religious cult. Somewhat relatedly, this paper also acknowledges (b) people’s broader, longstanding fascinatio…
Kenneth Burke’s Dramatistic Pragmatism: A Missing Link between Classical Greek Scholarship and the Interactionist Study of Human Knowing and Acting
The term “rhetoric” often has been maligned by those lacking familiarity with classical Greek and Latin scholarship. However, a more sustained, historically-informed examination of persuasive interchange is of fundamental importance for the study of human knowing and acting across the humanities and social sciences, as well as all other realms of community life. While acknowledging several contemporary scholars who have reengaged aspects of class…
Religious Beliefs, Practices, and Representations as Humanly Enacted Realities: Lucian (circa 120-200) Addresses Sacrifices, Death, Divinity, and Fate
Lucian of Samosata (circa 120-200) may be primarily envisioned as a poet-philosopher from the classical Roman era. However, the material he develops on religion not only anticipates important aspects of contemporary pragmatist/constructionist approaches to the sociology of religion but also provides some particularly compelling insights into religion as a humanly engaged realm of reality. Following an introduction to a pragmatist approach to the …
Aristotle’s Theory of Deviance and Contemporary Symbolic Interactionist Scholarship: Learning from the Past, Extending the Present, and Engaging the Future
Although his work has been largely overlooked by symbolic interactionists and other students of deviance, Aristotle (c384-322BCE) addresses community life, activity, agency, and persuasive interchange in ways that not only are remarkably consistent with contemporary symbolic interactionist approaches to deviance, but that also conceptually inform present day theories of deviance and provide valuable transhistorical comparison points for subsequen…
Instructional Ventures: A Pragmatist Research Agenda for Studying Education in the Making
Beyond promoting a mode of ethnographic inquiry that is conceptually informed and rigorously attentive to the actualities of human lived experience, this article encourages a more sustained, comparative analysis of the ways that administrators and instructors deal with education as a collectively developed venture. After (a) establishing an analytic frame for a more comprehensive approach to education as a socially engaged process, this article f…
Engaging Love, Divinity, and Philosophy: Pragmatism, Personification, and Autoethnographic Motifs in the Humanist Poetics of Brunetto Latini, Dante Alighieri, and Giovanni Boccaccio
Although the works of three early Italian Renaissance poets, Brunetto Latini (1220-1294), Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), and Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375), may seem far removed from the social science ventures of the 21st century, these three Italian authors provide some exceptionally valuable materials for scholars interested in the study of human knowing and acting. As central participants in the 13th-14th century “humanist movement” (in which c…
Encountering Nature, Experiencing Courtly Love, and Romance of the Rose: Generic Standpoints, Interpretive Practices, and Human Interchange in 12th-13th Century French Poetics
Whereas the fields of poetic expression and pragmatist philosophy may seem some distance apart, a closer examination of the poetics literature from the early Greeks onward provides testimony to the more general viability of the pragmatist analysis of community life, particularly as this has come to be associated with pragmatism’s sociological derivative, symbolic interaction. Following a brief overview of the Greek, Roman, and Christian roots of …
Love, Despair, and Resiliency: Ovid’s Contributions to an Interactionist Analysis of Intimate Relations
Ovid (Ovidius – Publius Ovidius Naso; 43 BCE-18 CE) is well known in classical studies and poetic circles for his insightful portrayals of heterosexual relations. However, his The Art of Love and related texts have received scant attention from those in the social sciences. Ovid’s writings on love may be best known for their advisory and entertainment motifs, but this same set of texts also provides an extended and comparatively detailed set of o…
Generating, Intensifying, and Redirecting Emotionality: Conceptual and Ethnographic Implications of Aristotle’s Rhetoric
In contrast to those who more characteristically approach emotion as an individual realm of experience of more distinctive physiological and/or psychological sorts, this paper addresses emotionality as a socially experienced, linguistically enabled, activity-based process. While conceptually and methodologically situated within contemporary symbolic interactionist thought (Mead 1934; Blumer 1969; Strauss 1993; Prus 1996; 1997; 1999; Prus and Gril…
Representing, Defending, and Questioning Religion: Pragmatist Sociological Motifs in Plato’s "Timaeus", "Phaedo", "Republic", and "Laws
Plato may be best known as a philosopher, but his depictions of people’s involvements in religion are important for social scientists not only because of the transcultural and transhistorical resources that they offer those in the sociology of religion, but also because of their more general pragmatist contributions to the study of human group life. Thus, although Plato (a) exempts religion from a more thorough going dialectic analysis of the sor…
Die Welt in Prozessen: Ausgehandelte Bedeutungen und Intersubjektive Welten
Jacques Attali (2003) bemerkt, die Grundidee eines Werkes sollte sich zunächst in einigen Sätzen, dann in einigen Absätzen, und letztlich als Text in Langform ausdrücken lassen. Wir möchten damit beginnen, die dieser Einführung zugrundeliegenden Ideen erst in einigen Absätzen explizieren, um dann zügig zu einem Beispiel zur Interpretationspraxis zu gelangen: Als Pragmatisten vertreten wir den Standpunkt, dass emulierte Praxis eine wesentlich bess…
In doppelter Intersubjektivität im Feld
Wenn man sich im Feld befindet, ist keine Zäsur erreicht: „Methodenbücher erwecken den Eindruck, der Forscher könne die ‚passende Methode‘ vorab festlegen und dann befolgen. Viele Entscheidungen, wie sich eine Praxis beobachten lässt, sind dagegen pragmatischer Natur“, bemerkt Scheffer (2002: 353). Wir wollen daher festhalten, mit welchen praktischen Fragen die doppelte Intersubjektivität einhergeht. In Orientierung zum Feld hin kommen Fragen auf…
Eine Einladung zur Ethnografie
Ethnografen gehen und sehen in fremde Umfelder, dorthin, „where the action is“ (Goffman 1967), wo es action gibt/wo etwas los ist. Dort „hängen sie rum“, machen mit. Sie lassen sich nieder und ein, lassen sich mitnehmen und belehren: Sie schlüpfen in einem mittel- bis langfristigen Prozess in die Rolle der Laien, in der sie sich den Realitäten der Anderen zumindest zeitweise ergeben, um die Prozesse, in denen die Menschen ihre Welt machen, in „in…
Feldnotizen und Analyse
Man hat ein Feld ausgewählt. Man hat Konzepte eingesetzt, als man in dieses Feld ging. Man hat Zugang, Rapport, Rollen und damit Immersion erreicht. All das war bereits analytische Arbeit: Wenn die Trennung zwischen Planung und Durchführung schon künstlich war, ist es die Trennung von Analyse und Feldphase durch und durch. Die Platzierung der Grundlagen ethnografischer Analyse in einer Forschungsstruktur ist daher problematisch. „Es gibt bei unse…
Das Ziel: Schreiben/Darstellen
Hoffentlich ist die Ethnografie, die aus der Feldarbeit erwächst, keine Tragödie. Die Einsicht aber bleibt für die Geschichte, die zu erzählen ist, anwendbar: Es geht nicht um Charaktere, nicht um Personen und ihre Persönlichkeiten. Es geht Interaktionisten um Handlung und die sozialen Prozesse, in denen Aktivitäten der Teilnehmer stehen, und zum Zweck der Darstellung dieser Handlungen und Prozesse beziehen sie Charaktere ein. Aber sie konzentrie…
Grundzüge offener Forschung
Ethnografische Forschung will die Prozesse kartografieren, in und mit denen Menschen ihre Welt machen. Letztliches Ziel ist eine ethnografische Arbeit, die entweder ein Set von verwobenen Prozessen auf einem bestimmten Feld oder einen engeren Prozess über verschiedene Felder hinweg ordnet, dicht beschreibt und an die Soziologie anbindet. Die Forscherin will das Feld breit überblicken, aber vor allem will sie „auf die Hinterbühne“. Das heißt: Sie …
On the Necessity of Re-engaging the Classical Greek and Latin Literatures: Lessons from Emile Durkheim’s The Evolution of Educational Thought
Einführung in die interaktionistische Ethnografie: Soziologie Im Außendienst
Ethnografie hat weiterhin den Geruch von Abenteuer. Der vorliegende Band bietet eine HeranfÃ1⁄4hrung an die ethnografische Haltung und Praxis, mit der das immersive Abenteuer der Feldarbeit und das akademische Abenteuer der Schreibarbeit zusammen bestritten werden können. Als von Interaktionisten verfasste EinfÃ1⁄4hrung bietet er Einsteigern eine klassische, zurÃ1⁄4ck zu den Chicagoer Wurzeln fÃ1⁄4hrende Praxis an, in der Intersubjektivität, Offe…
Morality, Deviance, and Regulation: Pragmatist Motifs in Plato's "Republic" and "Laws
Envisioning morality, deviance, and regulation as enduring features of human group life, and using symbolic interaction (Mead 1934; Blumer 1969; Prus 1996; Prus and Grills 2003) as a conceptual device for traversing the corridors of time, this paper asks what we may learn about deviance and morality as humanly engaged realms of community life by examining Plato's (420-348 BCE) Republic and Laws. Focusing on the articulation of two model communiti…
Defending Education and Scholarship in the Classical Greek Era: Pragmatist Motifs in the Works of Plato (c420-348BCE) and Isocrates (c436-338BCE)
As a broader realm of human endeavor and communication, education seems as fundamental as human group life itself. However, liberal education and scholarly ventures are much more problematic and fragile features of community life. Still, a liberal education is not the same as scholarship and some important distinctions are made between these two realms of activity prior to considering the ways in which they are envisioned and defended by two clas…
Examining Community Life “in the Making: Emile Durkheim’s Moral Education
Generic Social Processes: Maximizing Conceptual Development in Ethnographic Research
Focusing on the production of a processual ethnographic sociology, this article has three major objectives. The first is to outline the roots of "generic sociology," particularly in light of the interpretive/ethnographic inquiry. The second objective is to indicate the sorts of difficulties ethnographers are apt to encounter in pursuing the study of generic social processes. Third, some suggestions for an intensification of efforts toward a gener…
Symbolic interaction and classical greek scholarship: Conceptual foundations, historical continuities, and transcontextual relevancies
"Aristotle’s "Nicomachean Ethics: Laying the Foundations for a Pragmatist Consideration of Human Knowing and Acting
Whereas a great many academics have presumed to speak knowledgeably about Aristotle's work, comparatively few have actually studied his texts in sustained detail and very few scholars in the social sciences have examined Aristotle's work mindfully of its relevance for the study of human knowing and acting on a more contemporary or enduring plane. Further, although many people simply do not know Aristotle's works well, even those who are highly fa…
"Aristotle’s "Rhetoric: A Pragmatist Analysis of Persuasive Interchange
Approaching rhetoric as the study of persuasive interchange, this paper considers the relevance of Aristotle's Rhetoric for the study of human group life. Although virtually unknown to modern day social scientists, this text has great relevance for contemporary scholarship. Not only does Aristotle's text centrally address influence work (and resistance), identities and reputations, deviance and culpability, emotionality and deliberation, and the …
Causality, Agency, and Reality: Plato and Aristotle Meet George Herbert Mead and Herbert Blumer
Causal theorizing in sociology is often presumed best handled in the domain of multivariate, quantitative variable research. In contrast, we argue that such theorizing may be more authentically accomplished within the theoretical and methodological impetus of symbolic interactionism. Analyzing notions of causality in the work of Plato and Aristotle, we consider their relevance for contemporary accounts of human group life with reference to the wo…
Reconceptualizing the Study of Community Life: Emile Durkheim’s Pragmatism and Sociology
Resisting Designations: An Extension of Attribution Theory into a Negotiated Context
While attribution theory has generated a great deal of interesting research, it tends to be overly deterministic, failing to recognize the social context in which attributions occur. In response to this an attempt is made to place attribution theory in an interactionist framework, with particular emphasis on the conditions under which a target andlor others interested in the target's situation may resist undesired attributions
Einführung in die interaktionistische Ethnografie: Soziologie Im Außendienst
Ethnografie hat weiterhin den Geruch von Abenteuer. Der vorliegende Band bietet eine HeranfÃ1⁄4hrung an die ethnografische Haltung und Praxis, mit der das immersive Abenteuer der Feldarbeit und das akademische Abenteuer der Schreibarbeit zusammen bestritten werden können. Als von Interaktionisten verfasste EinfÃ1⁄4hrung bietet er Einsteigern eine klassische, zurÃ1⁄4ck zu den Chicagoer Wurzeln fÃ1⁄4hrende Praxis an, in der Intersubjektivität, Offe…
Love, Friendship, and Disaffection in Plato and Aristotle: Toward a Pragmatist Analysis of Interpersonal Relationships
Although much overlooked by social scientists, a considerable amount of the classical Greek literature (circa700-300BCE) revolves around human relationships and, in particular, the matters of friendship, love and disaffection. Providing some of the earliest sustained literature on people's relations with others, the poets Homer (circa 700BCE) and Hesiod (circa 700BCE) not only seem to have stimulated interest in these matters, but also have provi…
The Myth of the Independent Variable: Reconceptualizing Class, Gender, Race, and Age as Subcultural Processes
Examining Community Life “in the Making: Emile Durkheim’s Moral Education
Creating, Sustaining, and Contesting Definitions of Reality: Marcus Tullius Cicero as a Pragmatist Theorist and Analytic Ethnographer
Although widely recognized for his oratorical prowess, the collection of intellectual works that Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE) has generated on persuasive interchange is almost unknown to those in the human sciences. Building on six texts on rhetoric attributed to Cicero (Rhetorica ad Herennium, De Inventione, Topica, Brutus, De Oratore, and Orator), I claim not only that Cicero may be recognized as a pragmatist philosopher and analytic ethn…
Ethnographic Trailblazers: Herodotus, Thucydides and Xenophon
While ethnographic research is often envisioned as a 19th or 20th century development in the social sciences (Wax 1971; Prus 1996), a closer examination of the classical Greek literature (circa 700-300BCE) reveals at least three authors from this era whose works have explicit and extended ethnographic qualities. Following a consideration of “what constitutes ethnographic research,” specific attention is given to the texts developed by Herodotus (…
Defending Education and Scholarship in the Classical Greek Era: Pragmatist Motifs in the Works of Plato (c420-348BCE) and Isocrates (c436-338BCE)
As a broader realm of human endeavor and communication, education seems as fundamental as human group life itself. However, liberal education and scholarly ventures are much more problematic and fragile features of community life. Still, a liberal education is not the same as scholarship and some important distinctions are made between these two realms of activity prior to considering the ways in which they are envisioned and defended by two clas…
Shop 'til You Drop: Shopping as Recreational and Laborious Activity
Robert Prus, Lorne Dawson, Shop 'til You Drop: Shopping as Recreational and Laborious Activity, The Canadian Journal of Sociology / Cahiers canadiens de sociologie, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Spring, 1991), pp. 145-164
Representing, Defending, and Questioning Religion: Pragmatist Sociological Motifs in Plato’s "Timaeus", "Phaedo", "Republic", and "Laws
Plato may be best known as a philosopher, but his depictions of people’s involvements in religion are important for social scientists not only because of the transcultural and transhistorical resources that they offer those in the sociology of religion, but also because of their more general pragmatist contributions to the study of human group life. Thus, although Plato (a) exempts religion from a more thorough going dialectic analysis of the sor…
Religion, Platonist Dialectics, and Pragmatist Analysis: Marcus Tullius Cicero’s Contributions to the Philosophy and Sociology of Divine and Human Knowing
Whereas Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Augustine are probably the best known of the early Western philosophers of religion, Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE) also played a particularly consequential role in the development and continuity of Greco-Latin-European social thought. Cicero may be best known for his work on rhetoric and his involvements in the political intrigues of Rome, but Cicero’s comparative examinations of the Greco-Roman philoso…
On the Necessity of Re-engaging the Classical Greek and Latin Literatures: Lessons from Emile Durkheim’s The Evolution of Educational Thought
Ethnographic Comparisons, Complexities and Conceptualities: Generic Social Processes and the Pragmatic Accomplishment of Group Life
Deriving inspiration from the Jörg Niewöhner and Thomas Scheffer collection on dilemmas of ethnographic comparison, this paper addresses some of the processes and problematics of ethnographic comparative analysis. In contrast to the broader, methodologically inclusive and conceptually more diffuse approach in the collection, I present a more focused theoretical, methodological, and conceptual approach. Locating ethnographic comparative analysis w…
Terrorism, tyranny, and religious extremism as collective activity: Beyond the deviant, psychological, and power mystiques
Religious Recruitment and the Management of Dissonance: A Sociological Perspective
While religious organizations are not concerned with cognitive dissonance, per se, their concerns with acquiring new members maintaining member beliefs, obtaining member commitments and deterring members from leaving. are all affected by their abilities to manage (avoid, tolerate and exploit) dissonance experienced by those persons. Conceptualizing dissonance as a socially negotiable phenomenon, a sociological version of dissonance is examined in…
Labeling Theory: A Reconceptualization and a Propositional Statement on Typing
In this paper, current notions of “labeling theory” are faulted for being overly inclusive and lacking theoretical specificity. In response to this, a delimitation of labeling, to the naming process, is proposed and a four stage processual conceptualization is offered relative to that delimited notion of labeling. This reconceptualization features a multi-process model involving: typing, designating; assessing; and resisting labels. Following the…
Aristotle’s Theory of Deviance and Contemporary Symbolic Interactionist Scholarship: Learning from the Past, Extending the Present, and Engaging the Future
Although his work has been largely overlooked by symbolic interactionists and other students of deviance, Aristotle (c384-322BCE) addresses community life, activity, agency, and persuasive interchange in ways that not only are remarkably consistent with contemporary symbolic interactionist approaches to deviance, but that also conceptually inform present day theories of deviance and provide valuable transhistorical comparison points for subsequen…
Morality, Deviance, and Regulation: Pragmatist Motifs in Plato's "Republic" and "Laws
Envisioning morality, deviance, and regulation as enduring features of human group life, and using symbolic interaction (Mead 1934; Blumer 1969; Prus 1996; Prus and Grills 2003) as a conceptual device for traversing the corridors of time, this paper asks what we may learn about deviance and morality as humanly engaged realms of community life by examining Plato's (420-348 BCE) Republic and Laws. Focusing on the articulation of two model communiti…
Policy as a collective venture: A symbolic interactionist approach to the study of organizational directives
Although the particular policies that groups establish may serve to differentiate those groups from others in the broader community, policies are better envisioned as aspects of group life in the making than as structures or rules that define the character or operations of the groups under consideration. Addressing instances of policy as humanly engaged ventures, this statement attempts to demystify policy by (a) examining organizational directiv…
Labeling Theory: A Reconceptualization and a Propositional Statement on Typing
In this paper, current notions of “labeling theory” are faulted for being overly inclusive and lacking theoretical specificity. In response to this, a delimitation of labeling, to the naming process, is proposed and a four stage processual conceptualization is offered relative to that delimited notion of labeling. This reconceptualization features a multi-process model involving: typing, designating; assessing; and resisting labels. Following the…
Resisting Designations: An Extension of Attribution Theory into a Negotiated Context
While attribution theory has generated a great deal of interesting research, it tends to be overly deterministic, failing to recognize the social context in which attributions occur. In response to this an attempt is made to place attribution theory in an interactionist framework, with particular emphasis on the conditions under which a target andlor others interested in the target's situation may resist undesired attributions
Religious Recruitment and the Management of Dissonance: A Sociological Perspective
While religious organizations are not concerned with cognitive dissonance, per se, their concerns with acquiring new members maintaining member beliefs, obtaining member commitments and deterring members from leaving. are all affected by their abilities to manage (avoid, tolerate and exploit) dissonance experienced by those persons. Conceptualizing dissonance as a socially negotiable phenomenon, a sociological version of dissonance is examined in…
Road Hustler
Road Hustler
Desk Clerks and Hookers: Hustling in a "Shady" Hotel
Hookers, Rounders, and Desk Clerks: The Social Organization of the Hotel Community
Designating discretion and openness: The problematics of truthfulness in everyday life
Hookers, Rounders, and Desk Clerks: The Social Organization of the Hotel Community
Women on Heroin
Purchasing Products for Resale: Assessing Suppliers as 'Partners-in-trade
Speaking to the more general topic of commitments and the relationships implied therein, this paper examines 'purchasing' decisions on the part of businesspeople. The material on which this paper is based was gathered through interviews with people involved in retail, wholesale, manufacturing, and commercial trade, attendance of 'trade shows', and involvements in a craft enterprise.While focusing mainly on buyers, some attention is also given to …
Price-Setting as Social Activity: Defining Price, Value, and Profit in the Marketplace
Focusing on the price-setting activities of vendors, this article provides valuable insight into the social dynamics of the marketplace. In contrast to rational-economic assumptions, this inquiry examines pricing as a problematic, processual, and negotiable activity. Consideration is given to the fundamental role buyers play in shaping vendors' prices
It's on ‘sale: An examination of vendor perspectives, activities, and dilemmas
Ethnographic Research in Process: A Reply to Professor Robboy
Generic Social Processes: Maximizing Conceptual Development in Ethnographic Research
Focusing on the production of a processual ethnographic sociology, this article has three major objectives. The first is to outline the roots of "generic sociology," particularly in light of the interpretive/ethnographic inquiry. The second objective is to indicate the sorts of difficulties ethnographers are apt to encounter in pursuing the study of generic social processes. Third, some suggestions for an intensification of efforts toward a gener…
Developing Loyalty: Fostering Purchasing Relationships in the Marketplace
Addressing the more general topic of developing and maintaining relationships, this article considers the ways in which vendors endeavor to generate and sustain repeat patronage on the part of those with whom they do business. Using data collected as part of a larger ethnographic study of the social basis of marketing and sales behavior, this article examines (1) the significance of repeat patronage for businesses and those working therein, (2) t…
Pursuing commitments: An analysis of the influence work involved in ?closing sales
Making Sales: Influence as Interpersonal Accomplishment
Doing Influence Work Presenting Products Generating Trust Neutralizing Resistance Obtaining Commitments Encountering Troublesome Customers Developing Loyalty Holding 'Sales!' Maintaining Enthusiasm In Perspective
New Ethnographies
Pursuing Customers: An Ethnography of Marketing Activities
Participant Observation: A Methodology for Human Studies
The Methodology of Participant Observation The Process of Defining a Problem Gaining Entree to a Setting Participating in Everyday Life Developing and Sustaining Field Relationships Observing and Gathering Information Notes, Records, and Files Analyzing and Theorizing Leaving the Field and Communicating Results
The Interpretive Challenge: The Impending Crisis in Sociology
Women for Hire: Prostitution and Sexuality in France After 1850
Depicts prostitution in 19th-century France not as a vice, crime, or disease, but as a well-organized business. This text reveals how the brothel served the sex industry in the same way that the factory served manufacturing: it provided an institution for the profitable sale of services
Shop 'til You Drop: Shopping as Recreational and Laborious Activity
Robert Prus, Lorne Dawson, Shop 'til You Drop: Shopping as Recreational and Laborious Activity, The Canadian Journal of Sociology / Cahiers canadiens de sociologie, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Spring, 1991), pp. 145-164
New Ethnographies
Sociology (63 works) · Philosophy (46 works) · Epistemology (41 works) · Philosophy (37 works) · Law (30 works) · Psychology (28 works) · Social science (28 works) · Law (27 works) · Political science (25 works) · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice (20 works)