Categorizational Asymmetries in Context
Producing and Resisting Policeable Scenes
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2049195 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Robin Smith (0000-0001-7457-9690, Cardiff University Cardiff United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 48 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 657-680 |
| Publication date | 2025-04-25 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Symbolic Interaction (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0195-6086 • E-ISSN: 1533-8665 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1002/symb.1246 |
| OpenAlex | W4409828848 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 30 |
This article examines categorizational asymmetries observable in the attempted production and negotiation of a 'policeable' scene. The case described in the article-an encounter between a police officer and a black male student treated as 'out of place'-demonstrates how members accomplish, negotiate, and resist categorial 'statuses' and associated rules of application. In dialog with insights from ethnomethodology and critical praxeological analysis, the analysis describes practices through which categorizations and devices relating to legitimate presence are produced, implied, and resisted in situ, and how available relevancies of racial categorization can remain implicit. In attending to the officer's resources of description and categorization which shift the contexture of the scene, and the potential suspects efforts to resists such categorizations, the analysis respecifies Goffman's (1983) remarks relating to how actors can come to 'give official imprint to reality.' The article contributes to studies of policing encounters in highlighting categorization practices and category relevancies as constituent members in producing and contesting 'policeable' scenes and moves the analytic attention from assumedly asymmetrical category pairs to the practice that produce and manage asymmetries-in-action
Archaeology · Cognitive psychology · Context (archaeology · Sociology · Crime, Deviance, and Social Control · History · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Policing Practices and Perceptions · Psychology
The functions of the police in modern society
Tacit Racism
Race and place
Lectures on Conversation
Studies in Social Interaction
The Everyday World as a Phenomenon
Sequential Standoffs in Police Encounters With the Public
Membership categorization analysis, race, and racism
Critical praxeological analysis
Black methodologies as ethnomethods
Membership categorization, culture and norms in action
The Problem of Context in the Analysis of Social Action
Ethnomethodological Misreading of Aron Gurwitsch on the Phenomenal Field
Human Practices and the Observability of the ‘Macrosocial
An overview of the question–response system in American English conversation
Place formulations and the incongruity procedure
Symbolic interactionism and the concept of power
The Interaction Order
Stephen Hester on the problem of culturalism
A tutorial on membership categorization
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |