Grounding the Postmodern Self. - Sociology [PDF]

Grounding the Postmodern Self Author(s): Jaber F. Gubrium and James A. Holstein Source: The Sociological Quarterly, Vol. 35, No. 4 (Nov., 1994), pp. 685-703 Published by: Wiley on behalf of the Midwest Sociological Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4121525 Accessed: 25-12-2015 20:32 UTC

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GROUNDING THE POSTMODERN SELF JaberF. Gubrium Universityof Florida

James A. Holstein Marquette University In postmoderndiscourse, self is displacedas a central presence in experienceand as yet anotherpersonalsignifier.This paperdescribeskey postmodern reappropriated views, thenreframespostmodernvocabularyin termsof interpretivepractice.It argues that the postmodernframingof self is too abstractand that a distinctlymoderndiscourse focusedon the deprivatization of interpretiveactivity can accountempirically for featuresof postmodern"presence."Comparativeethnographicandnarrativematerial is offeredin illustration.Weconcludeby suggestinghow self can be retrievedfor classical sociological commentaryand research. The self has come on extraordinarilyhard times. Challenges are abstract and ontological, whose leading theme is the postmodern denial of self as a central presence in experience. The sharp turn follows decades of more grounded critique that presented the self's trials as stemming from moral uncertainty, inequality and domination, organizations and the technical rationalization of everyday life, and their related "anonymizing" tendencies, all of which have roots in classical social theory.' The most recent and serious challenge-the postmodemrn-is less concerned with conditions of social organization, conveying instead the liquid, imaged "self" of electronic media and consumerism.2 It denies the relevance of classical sociological commentaries that directed us to processes of rationalization, modes of production and differentiation, and collective representation (but see Pfohl 1992). In the context of the postmodern, the idea of the self as a central presence dissolves and is replaced by the radicalization of what Derrida (1978) calls the "play of difference," whose objects are ontologically enlivened and deadened by floating signifiers, eclipsing substantiality. In the condition of postmodernity, the self is no longer a metanarrative, as Lyotard (1984) might put it, but one term among others for representing experience. Moreover, the self is polysemic, that is, attached to, and articulated with, multiple systems of signs. While supporters of this view see new possibilities for the expression of experience, detractors consider it a philosophical smokescreen for the abdication of responsibility and gratuitous powerlessness (see Lash and Friedman 1992). Has the self, whether traditional or modem, disappeared from everyday life? If it has Directall correspondenceto: JaberF. Gubrium,Departmentof Sociology, Universityof Florida,Gainesville,FL 32611-7330. The Sociological Quarterly, Volume 35, Number 4, pages 685-703. Copyright ? 1994 by JAI Press, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. ISSN: 0038-0253.

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not disappeared,is there any sense in which self can be concretelydescribedusing postmodernterms?In this paper,we arguethatby groundingthe self in everydayinterpretive practicesof self-definition,we can see that self remainsa substantialpresencefor those who depictexperiencein relationto it. Webegin by specifyinghow self is elided in postmoderncontext, move on to consider contrastingpostmodernconcerns, and then examine empiricallyhow self's presencemight be conceptualizedto coincide in some fashion with postmodernsensibilities.Our aim is to appreciatethese sensibilitieswhile preservingthe self for classicalsociological consideration. THEPOSTMODERN"SELF" Postmodernismappliesto a varietyof contemporaryviews. The versionthatwe characterize is gleaned largely from the influentialwork of Jean Baudrillard,Jean-Francois Lyotard,and JacquesDerrida.In Lyotard's(1984) expressionof the postmodern,master narrativesevaporate,as do mastervocabularies.In their absence, the signal terms of classical social theory-like theself amongothertermssuch as society,class, community, value, attitude,sentiment,and reason-no longerapply in the same way. In postmodernism, one necessarilywritesthe termswith quotationmarks,if, indeed, it is still possible to write them at all. How have the termschangedto requirethis style of reference?We turnto Lyotard's(1984) ThePostmodernConditionfor an answerbecauseit not only is a leadingstatementof postmodernconsciousness,but it also offersa basis for groundingthe ostensibly groundless. Lyotard'sIntroductiondescribesthe postmodern(and by implicationthe "self") as a condition of knowledge in highly developedsocieties, where we can no longersimply speak, write, or referto objectsin the way we had before the late nineteenthcentury(p. xxiii). We can inferthatbeforethis, wordsin principlereferredto thingsseparatefromthe words themselves. Of course, wordscould incorrectlyrepresentthings, and in thatsense transmuteknowledge,but the "thingness"of thingswas not so muchat stakeas was their accuraterepresentation.Forexample,one could misrepresentthe self or incorrectlyread and realitywas takenas a matter otherselves, but the discrepancybetweenrepresentation categoricallyseparatefrom self's presence.3 According to Foucault(1973), this provided the primaryempiricalquestionsof a varietyof intellectualdisciplines,fromstudiesof the historyof self to the psychologyand sociology of self-organizationand self-presentation(see Dreyfus and Rabinow 1982, chap. 7). The disciplinesaimedto reliablyand validly describethe empiricalself in its manifoldrelationshipswith the conditionsaffectingexperience. In the Anglo-American context, the social and behavioralsciences favoreda scientific vocabularyof self, which resonated with prevailingindividualisticand reformistsentiments(Rorty 1992). That uniquelyAmericanbrandof sociology, symbolicinteractionism,focused its narrativeon an essentiallypresentself, variouslytheorizingit as a solid, reflexive,labeled,performed, or situatedentity (Stone and Farberman1970;Reynolds 1990). Lyotardconsidersthe hallmarkof postmodernityto be a "breakingup" of these epistemological or grandbases of the disciplines (pp. 15 and 31-41). "Simplifyingto the extreme,"he writes(p. xxiv), "Idefinepostmodernas incredulitytowardmetanarratives." Withrespectto the social andbehavioralsciences as narrativesof the self, we takehimto mean that theoriesof self can no longer be acceptedas principallyabout the thing they represent.The incredulitystems from the possibility that the theories are also about

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themselves. One mightargue,forexample,thatthroughits wordsand theoreticalformuconstitutesthe objectof its descriptions.A disciplinehas lations, symbolicinteractionism tacit ontological rules abouthow to proceedin "doing"or constitutingthe realityunder consideration.What is postmodernaboutthis is the view thatsuch rules constitutewhat the rules are about, makingthe real game-likein Wittgenstein's(1958) sense. Postmodernnarrativescannot be evaluated in terms of their truth value. Instead, narratives-ordinary, grand,or otherwise-are appreciatedin relationto their situated communities"(Fish 1980).This centersissues of "truth" acceptabilitywithin"interpretive squarelywithin and between languagegames, not in the relationshipbetween narrative and the things narrativeostensiblyreferences.In postmodernism,thingsbecome matters of narrativecompetence,invention,and aesthetics. Is "self" in postmoderncontext,then, an arbitrary,"up for grabs"(Sica 1993, p. 17), "anythinggoes" entity (Gergen1991, p. 7; Featherstone,1992, p. 266), a perpetual"con game"(Berman1992)?Lyotardsuggestsotherwise,implyingthatthe postmodernself is, first, a conditionof knowledge.It is a "self" necessarilyreferencedin quotationmarks because the natureof our knowledgeof self is markedlychanged from its substantial modem form. Self no longersimply referencesan entity, a presenceor presences. It is possible to speak of the diversityof self in both modem and postmoderndiscourse, but modem diversityis substantialwhilepostmodernis constitutive,insubstantial.Neitherthe old fashionedideaof a coreself northe morerecentnotionof a nonpathological,multiple, and performativeself can representits postmoderncondition. Second, in this conditionof knowledge,the word "self" becomesa discursivehorizon for presence, a "floating,"but socially organizedsignifier, flexibly yet systematically constitutingself accordingto alternativevocabularies.To speakof the postmodernself is to set a discursive and experientialstage (or stages), as it were, upon which further references,exchanges, repairs,andresistancesareplayedout. Using the Wittgensteinian terminologythat Lyotardfavors,the self is a languagegame whose leadingconstitutive rule specifies a centrallocationin experiencefor itself. Anotherversionof the rulemight specify multiplelocations, but nonethelesslocationsin experience. Third,postmodernsensibilitiescounterposeself and nature.As a floatingsignifier,self does not naturallyrepresentany particularthing or domain of experience. If it significantlyrepresentsanythingin practice,it is of cultural,not purelynatural,significance.We might say that in some culturalcontexts, self centrallyrepresentsexperiencewhile in others it only marginallydoes, drawingin each case on a shared,workinglanguageof representation. FROM HYPERREALITY TO PRAGMATICS

Still, the postmodernself, accordingto Lyotard(1984, p. 15) does "notamountto much." Nonetheless, it remainsan objectof discussion, somethingthatpostmodernistscontinue to describeand debate. Thereare two importantironieshere. One is thatpostmodernists want to erasepresencebecausethereis no warrantfor it, yet they tell us whatthatlack of presenceis like. This, of course,requirespresenceor at least some semblanceof substantiality. There needs to be somethingessentially modernabout the postmodernfor the postmodernto be aboutanythingotherthanan instantaneousswirl into itself or no-thing. Second, as irasciblyreluctantas postmodernistsare to be categorizedas pre- or postanything, they do bring intellectual(re)sourceswith them to their projects. While they

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resist the idea of "source,"the irony is thatmoderntheoreticaldifferences-from structuralismand critical theory to hermeneutics-are carriedinto descriptionsof the postmodem condition.Forexample,whatpostmodernistDenzin(1988, 1991, 1992)conveys about self and experiencereflects his deep involvementin the symbolic interactionist traditionand discourse (see, for instance, Lindesmith,Straussand Denzin 1988). This contrastswith the postmodernvision of, say, Baudrillard(1983, 1988), whose point of departureonce was modemcriticaltheory(see Baudrillard1981). Old-fashioned,modem (re)sourceswork to articulatethe postmodernso thatthereis modemtheoreticaldiversity in reportsof the postmoderncondition. It is useful to thinkof thesetwo ironiesin relationto imagined,empiricalsites, thatis, metaphoricalscenariosfor communicatingand theorizing"whatit's like," even while in the postmoderncontext there is no substantial"it" to liken. For example, Baudrillard We use this as a locates the postmodernconditionin what he aptly terms"hyperreality." point of contrastfor what we believe to be a more groundedsite, namely, the concrete locations for self-constitutionsuggestedby Lyotard'sterm "pragmatics." First consider Baudrillard'shyperreality.Baudrillardwrites of the postmoderncondition in parallelto electronic,not printmedia. The printmedia are linear, "wordy,"and relativelyslow. They presentour selves, others, and the world in termsof before, now, and after.A grandthemeof the modemthusundergirdsthe writtenmedia:time is ordered sequentiallyand dividedinto periods;space is allocatedwithintime so thatwe peruseone news location, another,and then another. Accordingto Baudrillard(see Kellner 1989), electronic media, especially television, changes this. Throughtelevision, we are taken instantlyto distantand disparateplaces. Space in termsof distancedoesn'tseem to matter.In seconds, contrastingimagesof, say, the self, arejuxtaposed,jarringa modem sensibility that usually keeps them apart.An advertisementfor cotton fabric, sung in the mood and phrases of existentiallonging, flashesintothe fantasticglitz anddizzyingpasticheof football'shalftimeactivities,which soon whizzes into an ad for thecoolness andmasculinityof light beerandfastcars.And if that isn't enough, the viewer can increase the speed and collapse space by "channel surfing"via remotecontrol. The site conveys the hyperreal.Reality,or modem time and space, are "crankedup"to the point where the orderand bordersnormallyassociatedwith them no longer apply. Substantialitybecomes a matterof images as simulationssupplantthe actual.Presenceis thrownto the sidelines of a literallymindlessproject. Significancesare so flattenedthat signs cease to have any referenceto things, becoming a playful site of signs-signs of othersigns andothersigns of signs. The site offersthe Gulf Warto the Americanpublicin the shapeof a mediasimulationor video game-sheer events with no center(Baudrillard 1991a, 1991b).As Kellner(1992, p. 147) describesit, televisionis a site of "purenoise," "a blackhole whereall meaningand messagesare absorbedin the whirlpoolandkaleidoscope of radicalsemiurgy,of the incessantdisseminationof imagesandinformationto the point of total saturation." Self hardlymattersin this site. It is nowhereand everywhereat the same time, totally abstracted,rapidlyflittingbeforeus in myriadversionswithoutreferenceto experience.It is struttedabout on news programs,in sound bites from talking heads. We hear its authenticsecrets as the pained,troubled,and morallytriumphantspeakon talkshows of their inner sorrows, deepest feelings, and private desires. The profoundlypersonalis conveyed facilely and artificially,plasticizingthe genuine.

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In Baudrillard's hyperreality, the self is totally on display, multiply commodified for mass consumption. We receive the sights and sounds of a thousand inner spaces. A mere flick of the switch or flip of the channel selector offers an array of "we's" and "them's," of what we were, are, and can be. It is impossible to harbor or protect privacy. Indeed, in postmodernity, privacy is tantamount to pathology. The intimate is made public, the private is totally exposed, with no space for inner life. Hyperreality has its detractors, however (see Featherstone 1988; Poster 1988; Best and Kellner 1991; Lash and Friedman 1992; Seidman and Wagner 1992). For example, Featherstone (1988) cautions that while Baudrillard attempts to describe hyperreality as an empirical site epitomized by television, Baudrillard offers few clues to how the hyperreal relates to practice: Forall the allegedpluralismandsensitivityto the Othertalkedaboutby some theorists one finds little discussionof the actualexperienceand practiceof watchingtelevision by differentgroupsin differentsettings(p. 200). Referring to the postmodern penchant for siting experience in channel-hopping and multiphrenic imaging, Featherstone also notes that "evidence of the extent of such practices, and how they are integrated into, or influence, the day-to-day encounters between embodied persons is markedly lacking" (p. 200). In the Introduction to Selected Writings from Baudrillard, Poster (1988) lists some additional criticisms, even while he later appreciates Baudrillard's contributions to our understanding of the impact of electronic media on society: [Baudrillard's]writing style is hyperbolicand declarative,often lacking sustained, he totalizeshis insights, refusingto qualify systematicanalysiswhen it is appropriate; or delimithis claims. He writesaboutparticularexperiences,television images, as if nothingelse in society mattered,extrapolatinga bleak view of the world from that limitedbase (p. 7). These shortcomings, especially a seeming blindness to class, age, and gender differences, combined with a pervasive nihilism (Best and Kellner 1991), demand an alternative treatment. While we appreciate Baudrillard'spolitical economy of signs, we aim to show how several aspects of postmodern abstraction are concrete features of ordinary, day-today interpretive practice. It is one thing to write abstractly of the condition of experience in an electronically-mediated, fast-paced, sign-consuming world; it is quite another to describe and document existing actions in relation to hyperreality. Lyotard fails to offer us a method, but he does provide perspective in his description of the "pragmatics" of knowledge. Drawing on Wittgenstein (1958), Lyotard (1984) likens the current, dizzying array of experience to socially organized, language games. This would locate the self at "the crossroads of pragmatic relationships," that is, in the midst of everyday, practical activities. Borrowing from Foucault (see Dreyfus and Rabinow 1982, chap. 3), we might add that the language games of the self have become institutionalized discursive formations. What there is to self is located at "nodal points" of communication (Lyotard 1984, p. 15), the intersection of multiple language games. Lyotard is aware of the overdetermination implied by institutional siting. Asked to speak of the postmodern self, he might argue that while self can be thought of as "moves"

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in languagegames locatedin diverseinstitutionalsettings, "Weknow todaythatthe limits the institutionimposes on potentiallanguage'moves' are neverestablishedonce and for all (even if they have been formallydefined)"(p. 17). What Lyotardapparentlyhas in mindis the idea of languagegameslinkedto institutionsas the locationof rationalizedand routinized,but not determineddiscursiveofferings,akinto Bourdieu's(1977) conceptof habitus(also see Bourdieuand Wacquant1992, especially pp. 113-158). ORGANIZATIONAL EMBEDDEDNESS, DEPRIVATIZATION, PRACTICE AND INTERPRETIVE The choice of institutionalpracticeas the empiricalsite for postmodernlanguagegamesof the self relatesto a complexchangein the idea of privacy.Forhalf a century,sociologists life (see and social commentatorshavedebatedthe importanceof privacyin contemporary Parsons 1971, Parsonsand Bales 1955, Riesman 1950, Sennett 1974, Skolnick 1973). Initially the argumentwas that the most authenticaspects of our selves and lives were revealed,if not produced,withinthe cloisteredconfinesof the household,family,or close community.Dissenters,however,arguedthatlife is increasinglyconductedin the public realm. Some went so far as to say thatthe traditionalsanctuaryof privacy-the homewas being"invaded"by otherinstitutions.As Lasch(1977) wrotein Havenin a Heartless and World,"the family is besieged,"with the home's traditionalfunctionsof nurturance socializationdisplacedto publicarenas. The debate suggests that the most intimatedetails of self and family are increasingly mattersof public documentation,public record, and public definition (Gubriumand Holstein 1990; HolsteinandGubrium1994a),a paradoxof an explosionof deprivatization and simultaneousdesire for privacy.What is consideredreal or genuine is, more and more, descriptivelydeprivatized,that is, interpretedwithin organized, public circumstances. At the same time, privacy and authenticitystill are arguablythe bedrockof personaland domestic experience.The combinationleads us directlyto the postmodem self. Contraryto the inclinationof postmoderniststo see a radicalbreakbetweenmodemand postmodernexperience,we view the postmodernself as not so totallynew. Rather,self's social and intellectualconditioningover the yearshas dislodgedit fromtraditionalanalytic and experientialmoorings.While some would say thatthis self has ceased to exist as a significantcategoryof contemporarylife, we contendthatit is the self's voicingthathas noticeablychanged. Increasingly,large and small organizationsare engaged in articulatingandevaluating practicesthat, taken together,embed and accordinglygive voice to self-definition.If a process of experientialrationalizationconcretelyoccurs anywhere,it unfoldsin sites of interpretivepractice. From courtrooms,communitymental health centers, psychiatric hospitals,schools for the emotionallydisturbed,to aftercareprograms,self-improvement courses, supportgroups, counseling, and welfare agencies, the self remainsa central categoryfor attachingsubjectivemeaningto experience(cf. Weber1947, p. 88). While electronicmediapresentdiverse vocabulariesof self, the mediaofferfew clues as to how the flux of experienceis embodied in relationto self. However,a focus on interpretive practice-the ordinaryproceduresthroughwhich organizationally-embedded personsunderstand,represent,and managetheirrealities-provides a pointof departure. For several years, we have been documentingempiricallythe everyday processesthat

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constituteself in diverseorganizational settingsandhavebegunto incorporateelementsof the postmoderninto a constructionist perspectiveon social forms. The constructionismis distinctive in being less concernedwith the large scale rhetoricof self or other social forms (see Ibarraand Kitsuse 1993;SpectorandKitsuse 1987) thanwith self's everyday, articulations(see Gubrium1993a;Holstein and Gubrium1994b). naturally-occurring Our approachclaims a middlegroundbetweenmodernismand postmodernismin that we recognize the constitutivefluidityand multiplicityof social forms, includingthe self, that is associated with postmodernity,yet we tie this diversity to socially organized variabilityin the circumstancesof self production.The approachcapitalizeson a theoretiRatherthan elaboratelytheorizingthe cal minimalisminformedby ethnomethodology.4 between of self organizations,interpretivepractice,and the characterization relationship from the top down, we documentfromthe bottomup participants'own "theorywork"or practicalreasoning(Garfinkel1967)aboutself in the variedsettingswherethis occurs.5 We have studied self productionamong a spectrumof lay and professionalpersons: supportgroup participants,counselors,judges, lawyers, humanservice and healthcare personnel,troubledyouth,andfamilymembers,amongothers.They makethe self topical using diverse interpretiveresources.Some settings offer highly crystallizedresources, centeredon official understandings of the nature,structure,and developmentof selves, such as treatmentphilosophiesgroundedin behavioralprinciplesor psychoanalyticvocabularies. Other settings offer a bareminimum,their interpretiveresourceslimited to the accumulating,day-to-daycontributionsof participants,such as a past week's stories of self-actualizationsharedby membersof a supportgroup. We refer to these interpretiveresourcesas "local cultures,"collective representations writ small (Durkheim 1961; Gubrium1988, 1989; Gubriumand Holstein 1993). The (culture conceptis a way of being sensitiveto the practicaldelimitationsof metanarratives writ large) while keeping the radicallyrelativizingimpulsesof ethnomethodologyfrom dissolving all meaninginto constitutivemoments(Pollner 1991). Being local, cultureis not so totalizedas to completelyfix participant'spracticalreasoning,but neitheris it so ongoingly contextualizedas to be reconstitutedfrom the groundup on each interpretive occasion. RECASTINGPOSTMODERNVOCABULARY IN TERMSOF PRACTICE Postmodernistsregularlyreferto the decenterednessof experience,polysemy,the play of difference,and the perpetualpresent.It is a highly abstractvocabularyused to describe how the postmodernconditiondiffersfrom, say, the modernor traditional.How might these terms relate to interpretivepracticewhere self is concerned? In the following sections, we presentethnographicand narrativematerialfromstudies of interpretivepracticethat demonstrateshow an ostensibly floatingpostmodernself is empiricallygrounded.The settingsformalizethe commonplace.Like other formalsettings, they offer standardizedanswersto questions of self and mediate interpretation accordingto highly textualizedprocesses (cf. Smith 1987, 1990). While we focus on some specialized institutionalsites, we realize that questionsof self also arise in other settings, such as within householdsor in friendshipgroups. As informantsmake abundantlyclear in the form of accountsof "athome thoughts"and of "friendlydiscussions" among peers, considerationsin institutionalsites reflect and refract,as well as interact with, discussionsat home, amongfriends,and elsewhere.

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Authenticity, Decenteredness, and Polysemy Gergen(1991) notesthatunderlyingthe "centered"modemself is an authenticpresence thatis knowable,where"theveryconceptof personalessences is [not]thrownintodoubt" (p. 7). Whetherthe authenticself is cast romanticallyand definedin termsof feelingsand the moral fiber, or has a rationalisttone highlightingreason, choice, and predictability, self is nonetheless"present"(centered)in experience. How does this authentic,centeredself take postmodernform and become seemingly decenteredto the diversediscoursesof a deprivatizedworld?A comparativeethnography of two familycounselingprogramsshows one way in whichthe authenticselves of family members, in particulartheircompetenceor incompetence,is constitutivelyembeddedin contrastingorganizationalimagesof home life (Gubrium1992). In practice,self's presence is articulatedthroughthe organizations'respective sign systems, makingthe self polysemic. The two programs,locatedin differentfacilities, sharethe view thathealingthe family cures the person, linking the self to local cultures of domesticity.In one facility-an outpatientcounseling center called WestsideHouse6-domestic order is understoodin termsof power and hierarchy.Anythingfamily memberspresentin therapyis takento be a possible sign of authority.Informedprimarilyby the idea that domestic order (or disorder,as the case mightbe) is a system of authorityrelationships,the healthyhousehold consists of clear hierarchicallines of decision-making,parentsor adultsin charge, preferablyfathers at the head, and childrendutiful. An unambiguous,gender-flavored hierarchycontributessystemicallyto each and every family member'scompetenceand domestic well-being. Cross-cuttinglines of authoritypromptdomesticdisorder,causing problemssuch as depression,addiction,and truancy,which in turn increasesdomestic disorder. Signs of authorityareremarkablyordinary.At WestsideHouse, they are seen in family members'postures,theirverbalization,andmembers'seatingarrangement duringtherapy sessions. Erect posture, assertiveverbalization,and centralityof seating positionsignal authority.Domesticorderis neveractuallyseen; participantsonly see its signs, whichlink the very abstract,in thiscase domesticorderandpersonalcompetence,with themundane, that is, posture, seatingarrangement,and verbalization. To illustratehow authenticityis realizedin this interpretivecontext, considerhow the of familymembers-read as a systemof signs-serve to postureand seatingarrangement embody authorityand cast a motherand her sons as particulartypes of persons.In a meeting of family counselorsreviewing a videotape of the motherand sons' therapy session, participantsare told thatthe motheris divorcedand depressed,andthathertwin sons are repeatedlydisruptiveat school, "out of control,"so to speak. In the following extractfromthe proceedings,notehow, in the counselors'talk, the sons' statusas troubled youth is embodied in mundanesigns and interpretedin relationto the prevailinglocal cultureof domesticorder.Justbeforethe videotapeof the therapysession is played,Leila Korson,the counselinginternand formerschoolteacherwho is presentingthe case to the other counselors, summarizesthe so-called family situation. As they play the tape, the counselors (Gary Nelson, Nancy Cantor,TammyHorton, and Donna Reddick)turnto the monitor, where they expect to "see" the family situation. The counselorslisten as Korson,on tape, inquiresof the boys how it feels to grow up as twins. Nelson thenasks Korson to put the tape on pause and identify the persons on the monitor.As Korson

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proceeds, she commentson the seatingarrangement,designatingpostureas a clue to the "problemin this home." KORSON: This one twin [Johnny]was kindaquiet at first. I couldn'tget him to say anything. Laterin the session, he moved over here [pointsto his current seating position] and then he startedto talk more, like he was the boss aroundhome. I thinkhe's the dominantone [twin]. Look at the way he's sitting. [Johnnysits uprightand forwardin his chair.]He's like that all the time, even whenhe was sittingover here [pointsto the seat at the right,out of camerarange]. CANTOR: Now he's in thepowerseat andhe feels morecomfortable[pause]morelike himself. HORTON: Yeah, like he feels at home. REDDICK: The mother,to me, is giving mixed messages to the boys about living at home and going to the father[who lives nearby].She tells them if they don't behave,they canjust get out of the house and go to theirfather.Then she tells them thatthey betterbehave or they'll turnout just like him. HORTON: [Pointingto the monitoras she restartsthe tape]Yeah[pause]andjust look at thatkid [Johnny].Lookat how he sits at the edge of thechair[pause]like he's going tojumpall overMom if she daresto cross him. Justlook at him! It's writtenall over him. Thatlook he's giving her. My God, it'sjust telling her [mother]thathe's in charge.And he knows it. If she crosses him, he'll just marchover to Dad and live there. CANTOR: And would you look at the otherone [twin]. He's watchinghis brotherreal close-like, waiting to see what to do. And would ya look at Mom! [All watch the monitorfor a few seconds] Look at how she looks down at the floor all the time, like she's being steppedon when Johnnygets going. You can see whata badscene it is. That'snot a very healthyhome. No wonder those boys are delinquent. Counselorsview and pointto the monitoras if they were actuallywitnessingdomestic orderandthe competenceof familymembersbeforetheirveryeyes. Withcommentssuch as "Lookat Mom","Justlook at him,"and"That'snot a veryhealthyhome,"the speakers soundas if they areobservingthe household'ssocial orderand, at the sametime, how the twins as personsfigurein. Mundanesigns areused to concretelyandlocallyreferenceand constitutethe abstract,in this case, "nota very healthyhome"and "delinquency." Johndominant self is mediated its embodied in ny's dysfunctionally accordingly, authenticity terms. observable"evidence,"in locally-understood In the comparisonfamily counselingprogram,locatedin an inpatienttreatmentcenter called FairviewHospital,a contrastingcultureof domesticorderprevails.Evidenceagain is presentedin the course of practicalreasoningin relationto mundanesigns. While Fairviewconsidersitself therapeutically eclectic, the overridingimage of domesticorder is a configurationof emotionalbonds. Domesticdisorder,it is said, stems from uncommunicatedfeelings. Anythingthat blocks the expressionof feelings or hinders active listeningspells trouble.Poweris at the heartof troubles,the local nemesisof communication. As staffmemberssay andfamilymemberssoon learn,"powertrips"ruinthe family and are the source of most social and personalills.

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Accordingto Fairviewstaff, the healthyhouseholdis like a democracyof emotions. Each and every family memberor significantotherhas feelings. No one is withoutthem, not even the youngest child or a seemingly insignificantmember of the household. Feelings-especially love-are the bedrockof domesticorder.A householdin whichit is possible to expressfeelings andwhose membersactively listen to each otheris a healthy home, where individualself-esteemdemocraticallyintegratesthe membership. A democracy of emotions is very abstract,not something readily observed. As at WestsideHouse, a systemof signs linksthe abstractwith the mundane.At Fairview,signs of domestic ordercan be seen in the same words and gesturesas at Westside.Seating, posture, and verbalizationare significant.At Fairview,however, seatingrefersmore to of family members.Sittingdown is thought being seatedthanto the seatingarrangement to be more conducive to communicationand the receptionof feelings thanstandingup. The fatherwho sits down while describinghis unrulyson's behavioris more likely to convey authenticfeelingsandbe trulyheardthanthe fatherwho standsup andintimidates listeners. Posture, for example, sitting back, reflects communicativereceptivity.The motherwho not only sits downto communicate,butsits backin herchair,is seen as better equippedto empatheticallylistento herdaughter'sanxiouscomplaintsabouta boyfriend's drinkingthan the motherwho sits at the edge of her chair and appearsreadyto cut her daughteroff at any moment.Verbalizationis read in termsof voice modulation.Those who speak in an invitingandcalm toneof voice andwho, in turn,show evidenceof being preparedto "activelylisten," facilitatethe expressionof feelings. While the signs of domesticorderanddisorderaresimilar,they meandifferentthingsin of authenticityis polysemic. the contextof the two programs,and thusthe understanding At Westside, staff interpreta parentwho duringa therapysession seats him- or herself prominentlyin the room, presentsconfidently,andspeaksforcefully,as beingin authority at home, as it is locally believedparentsshouldbe. As a rule, parents,especiallyfathers, counseled at Westside do not present in this way, which typically serves to explain domestic troubles. Or fathersmightoverpresent,which signals dominationand possible abusiveness. At Fairview,staff would view such fathersas intimidatingand thwarting effective communication.The two programs'local culturesof domesticorder,in effect, provideresourcesfor interpretingsigns relatingto self and competencein oppositeways. How do the brief extract, the interactions,and their organizationalembeddedness convey a kindof postmodernself? It is evidentthatthe modernidea of authenticityis still intact. In both settings, participantssearchfor the core or essential meaningof conduct: what behavior"actually"means;whatsomeone"genuinely"feels; how someone"really" is. At Westside, counselorsperuseseating arrangement,posture, and verbalizationfor clues to the "presence"of authority,which in its properdomestic distributionsignifies order.At Fairview,the searchtargetsthe contrastingauthenticityof feelings. Feelingsat Fairvieware presentat the core of experience,even while power andauthoritymay make it appearotherwise. But what is presentand centeredin local understandingis variableand decenteredin interpretivepractice.While somethinglike Gergen'sso-called romanticistself is viewed as authenticat Fairview,a more rationalistself embodies authenticityat Westside.The contrastunderscoresself's polysemiccharacter.Whatis more, thereis extensiveevidence in each setting that what is consideredauthenticin the other setting is thoughtto be damagingto the self and domesticorder:Westsidecounselorsshow little patiencefor the expressionof feelings;Fairviewtherapistswallow in it, denigratingexpressionsof power and authority.

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Inasmuch as the two settings conduct family, not individual, therapy, individual selves are further embedded in the systems of interpersonal relations treated on the premises. While selves still make sense in the facilities, their dynamics are caught up in the family systems undergoing therapy, further decentering self and multiplying its "authentic" meanings.

Difference and Presentness Postmodernists also write of the play of difference and collapse time into a perpetual present. The question is how "playful" is difference? Can it be likened to the alleged swirling, dizzying signifiers and significances of MTV, where a perpetual present displaces any concrete sense of the past or future? How might an authentic, centered self with a past, present, and future reveal itself in these terms and yet be grounded in interpretive practice? Consider first how the meaning of self is diversely constructed in involuntary commitment proceedings where the hospitalization of persons thought to be mentally ill is reviewed. The proceedings orient to standardized criteria which stipulate that the candidate patient should be hospitalized only if he or she- is a danger to self or others, or is gravely disabled, that is, unable to provide the basic necessities of life (see Holstein 1993). Proceedings typically provoke multiple reality claims as discourse coalesces around competing professional understandingsand vocabularies of functional ability, potential for havoc, and dangerousness. At first glance, the situated constructions of self clearly suggest the "overabundance of meaning" (Denzin 1991, p. 8) that "saturates"(Gergen 1991) the postmodern self. Typically, divergent self characterizations are posited for the candidate patient. For example, in Arlene Bluman's commitment hearing (Holstein 1987), a psychiatrist initially characterizes Bluman as a "schizophrenic, disorganized type." In the psychiatrist's words: Arlene is often quite delusional.... Her reality orientationis very poor. She has difficultyseparatingfantasyfromreality.She displays an insidiousreductionin external attachments,relationships-a pathologicalindifferenceor apathythatinfringeson her ability to functionsocially. Following testimony from the candidate patient, the District Attorney (DA) arguing for Bluman's commitment appeals to the presiding judge to hospitalize Bluman because of her inability to function and her recurrent social impairment: [Bluman]has a repeatedhistoryof failurein noninstitutionalsettings. Thereis abundantevidence that she has troublekeepingherself togetherwhen she's released. She has troublemanaginghermoney.She has troublewith almosteverything-interacting with others, gettingalongwithpeople, takingher medications.She simplyisn't ready to resumea normallife at this point ... She is a very sick womanwho needs a lot of care. Bluman's Public Defender (PD) responds, claiming that Bluman is capable of managing life in the community, offering her own characterization of the candidate patient: My client has a place to.live. It's everythinga woman needs. The landlord,a Mr.

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He lives in the building Dietrich, has agreedto renther a room with a kitchen .... and says he'll look in on herfrom time to time. Arlene has some problems,but she's awareof themnow. Shejust needsa little help. This womanwill not be muchtrouble. How much troublecan a woman like her be? She won't cause anyone any harm. Looking after a woman in thatsituationwon't requirevery much ... Miss Bluman can managevery well with him [the landlord]helping take care of her. The judge rejects the PD's plea skeptically, offering his own assessment of Bluman: It seems that Arlene might be taken care of all right. But that's what worries me. Wouldwe be doing the rightthingby placing this womanin the care of some strange man? ... I don't feel good abouta woman living alone in this kind of arrangement .... This makesme very uneasy.A womanis very vulnerable.I'm concernedabout her safety. I'm concernedthatthis may not be the most properthing to do. And the PD responds: We have no reasonto believethatanythingimproperat all would happen.Justbecause she's a womandoesn't meanshe has to be protectedfrom every male that'sout there .... Whatthis womanneedsis just a little help to get by. Should we distrustanyone who offers to help? The judge answers "No," and reiterates his worry that Bluman's vulnerabilities as a woman raise the risk of her being exploited: We'retalkingabuta woman'sbestinteresthere. A woman's.And I've got to makethat the basis for my decision. Ms. Bluman'snot well yet, and even if she were, I don't know as I'd recommendher living in a place like this. It's importantthattherewould be someone therethatcould takecare of her. I'm surehe would, but that'smy worry. That he would take care of her, if you know what what I mean'. Borrowing from poststructuralist formulations (e.g., Derrida 1973, 1976, 1978), a postmodernist might characterize this exchange as a process of free-floating signification. Meaning, the postmodernist would argue, is not produced in a stable, referential relation between subject and object, but within the intertextual play of signifiers (Best and Kellner 1991). The meaning of a thing or concept, such as Bluman's character, is "necessarily and essentially inscribed in a chain or a system, within which it refers to another and to other concepts by the systematic play of difference" (Derrida 1973, p. 140). Characterizations of Bluman's self continuously and infinitely shift in a swirl of ungrounded signification. This "play" of meaning, however, is serious business and can be seen as contextually structured when examined in terms of interpretive practice. While ontologically naive, participants systematically characterize self in ways that belie the postmodem swirl. Interpretive practice reveals a structureto the play of difference. While the self remains an emergent descriptive project-an "artful" congeries of qualities and traits, as Garfinkel (1967) might put it-characterizations are parsimoniously formulated (Sacks and Schegloff 1979), tending to revolve around a limited number of well-known, locally-sanctioned categories or typifications. Using a particular category implies a constellation of ancillary features commonly associated with the category, such as the "grandfatherly gentleman" implying harmlessness. The application of a categorical description thus provides a working narrative rule for ascribing other characteristics, attributes, and motives (Sacks 1972).

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In the first extract from the commitment hearing, the psychiatrist characterizes Bluman in technical, behavioral terms. Bluman's self is composed from psychic elements, disorders, pathologies, and states of well-being, articulated in professional psychiatric discourse. Her schizophrenic self is real in the same terms. While not directly contesting this characterization in the other extracts, the two attorneys and the judge employ contrasting vocabularies, which are themselves professionally grounded in concerns for community order and protection from the havoc associated with mental illness (Holstein 1993). Their characterizations of Bluman orient to how well she might be able to carry on in the community as well as to her vulnerability. Their descriptive vocabulary of self reflects these orientations. The PD argues for release, using a discourse of manageability. Bluman is easy to control and contain. The minimal assistance of a kindly landlord is all that is necessary to make community living viable for the "harmless" Ms Bluman. However, the language of vulnerability is resurrected by the judge, referring to a well-intentioned "stranger" (the landlord) who, the judge argues, actually might be a sexual predator. The preceding exchange is replete with difference: alternate vocabularies cast and recast the practical reality of Bluman's personality. Yet, the flow of interpretation is socially organized, reined in by the hearing's communicative agendas, which in turn are linked with speakers' professional concerns. The PD stresses the connection between gender-a seemingly straightforward attributeof self-and manageability, seeking to articulate how easily managed Bluman would be and, in the process, rhetorically invoking "what everybody knows" about femininity. The judge constructs Bluman's vulnerability by playing off of a different constellation of implied meanings for gender, associating being female with helplessness and sexual susceptibility. The competing versions of what it means to be female rise and fall in the give-and-take of the exchange, but the shifts in meaning are neither arbitrary nor capricious. They are tied to local, organizationally-circumscribed discourses that play on distinct cultural configurations. Analogously, the use of the personal past, present, and future to define constituents of self is also locally grounded, making life history a present-time enactment. This, too, is evident in the commitment hearings, where the various participants formulate personal histories according to distinctive interpretive agendas. Lives are narratively constructed, made coherent and meaningful, through the "biographical work" that links experiences into circumstantially compelling life courses (Gubrium, Holstein and Buckholdt 1994). The process is artful, a complement to the play of difference, but it is locally informed and organized. To illustrate, consider how candidate patient Andre Wilson's life course is revealed in the competing scenarios offered by the psychiatrist who testifies regarding Wilson's mental condition and the judge who decides to have Wilson hospitalized. While the psychiatrist and judge agree on the need to hospitalize Wilson, they articulate Wilson's life history quite differently. First, the psychiatrist offers his version of Wilson's past and a prediction for Wilson's future: type .... Mr. My diagnosis:Mr. Wilsonis a schizophrenic,chronicundifferentiated Wilson has been hospitalizedin the MetropolitanCity areaseven times in the last five years. His record indicatesthat as long as ten years ago, he's shown symptomsof deterioratingrealityorientation.He is severely delusional. We have noteddelusional claims for ten years. He has reportedinstanceswherehe thoughthe was a memberof the police force, timeswhenhe claimedhe was a doctorwho hada cureforcancer,and he has claimedthatpeopleon thehospitalstaffhavebeen stealinghis belongingswhile he's been at Metro[thementalhospital].This historyof delusionsandmentaldeterio-

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THESOCIOLOGICAL Vol. 35/No. 4/1994 QUARTERLY rationindicatespsychosis,thathe's severelydisturbed.It's likely he'll get worse if he is not hospitalized.

Following other testimony, the judge orders Wilson's hospitalization, offering the following rationale: I tend to agree thatMr. Wilsonhas problemsthatmake it difficultfor him to manage his affairs.Squanderinghis disabilitychecks is not a good habit. I'm also troubledby the historyof encounterswiththe police. He doesn't seem to be able to get along with others very well. [Turnsto Wilson] Mr. Wilson, you probablywon't like this, but I thinkyou are going to end up in jail if we don't get you some morehelp. You'vegone off your medicationsin the past and you don't seem to listen to anyone who triesto help with your meds. It seems theonly way we can get thingsundercontrolis to have the hospitallook out for you for a little while longer. As Foucault (1975) might put it, a psychiatric "gaze" focuses the doctor's description on Wilson's mental status, which is expressed in terms of symptoms, psychoses, and delusions. Wilson's biography is marked by repeated psychological breakdowns and encounters with psychiatric professionals. The pattern of past delusional behavior is projected into the future, culminating in the prognosis of worsening illness. Contrastingly, the judge constructs Wilson's life history in terms of custodial concerns, relating to the candidate patient's past ability to take care of himself or others' inability to deal with him. Wilson's past is not so much a psychiatric history, as a series of community management problems. Both trajectories warranthospitalization, according to their speakers, but are conveyed in terms of speakers' circumstantially relevant vocabularies. While the contours of Wilson's personal past (and future) are assembled in the present, and in that sense exhibit postmodern "presentness," the respective time lines are taken by participants as real features of perceivedly distinct chronological realms. The present provides interpretive resources for constructions of Wilson's relevant life course, while biographical work sustains and concretizes the causal and justificatory reality of Wilson's conduct over time.

CONCLUSION Decenteredness, polysemy, difference, and presentness are a ubiquitous terminology of postmodern texts. The vocabulary is increasingly subject to fast, loose, and overly abstract application.7 Against this tendency, we have argued for an appreciation of the postmodern critique of self, but grounded in interpretive practice. The complex change in the social conditioning of self that we have called "deprivatization" shapes practice, so that the self emerges empirically in fluid, "postmodern" form. As the preceding materials show, this self is decentered; it is mediated by diverse local cultures, competing discourses, and the gambits of practical reasoning. Variation in interpretive practice provides for self's multivalent and polysemic reality. This does not mean that self is a floating signifier akin to the postmodern radicalization of Derrida's play of difference (cf. Norris 1990). If self floats, its does so within the bounds of its social and descriptive organization. Grounding the self in this way offers both theoretical and methodological guidelines for research, as well as a particulardisciplinary orientation. First, before we too hastily cross

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"the postmoderndivide" (Borgmann1992), it is importantto considerhow, with the appropriatemodifications,the modem,analyticnarrativesof classical sociologicaltheory can addressa postmodernconditionof self. We have arguedthat this can be done when as a modeof production.Tyingthe "real"to interpreinterpretivepracticeis foregrounded tive practiceavoidsthe postmoderndilemmaof criticizingwhatis substantialor presentin experience from a groundlessposition. It avoids the ultimate irony of attemptingto researchno thing (nothing)at all. Second, at the sametime, we mustnotturnawayfromthe seminaltheoreticalchallenge of postmodernism,whichmaintainsthatthe realitiesof social life areconstitutivelytied to their workingdiscourses.If we modifyWeber's(1947) classic concernwith rationalization so that it is attunedto practiceand sensitive to local culture,we see rationalityas a discursiveprocesssuffusingeverydaylife. Acknowledgingthis, theoristsof self shouldat least initiallyeschew totalizedmetasociologicalformulationsand attendto the descriptive organizationof the ordinarysituationsand vocabulariesthat fuel self's embodiments. Beginningwith "mundanereason"(Pollner1987), we can makevariousandcomplicated embodimentsof self visible fromthe bottomup andfeaturetheircontemporary ubiquity.8 Third, we need not assumea priorithata universalisticcriterionof authenticityis the final test of self knowledge. As we have shown, authenticitycontinues, directly or indirectly,to be an indigenousconcernacrosssituations.Participantstake accountof its local understandings and interpretations, lookingfor the "true,"the "genuine,"the "real." Authenticityis thus a member'scriterion,not an analyticstandard. Fourth,inasmuchas self's postmodernformis shornof presence,it is bereftof responsibility. It has no occasion to be moral, powerful, or powerless. Groundingself in interpretivepractice,however,ties moralityand politics to local understandings,conditions, and resources.Responsibilityis concretelysituatedin, and orientedto, local accountabilitystructures(Gubrium1993b;Holstein 1993), frameworkswithinwhich actors and actions are defined or define themselves in circumstantiallyrelevantterms with referenceto situatedvalues. This providesboth space and motivationfor agonistic and resistivemicropoliticsof the sortadumbrated,butnot fully developedby, say, Foucaultor Lyotard(see Best and Kellner1991). Linkedto local culture,the self is both responsive and responsibleto the practicalcontingenciesand moralitiesof choice and action. Finally,the orientationto interpretivepracticepointsin two methodologicaldirections. First, researchmust attendto the ineluctablylocal. The varieddomainsof everydaylife harborseparateand distinct understandings of the natureof self and criteriaof authenticity, local cultures of self. The emergenceof myriadorganizationswhose business includesdefiningthe self has beena significantrecentdevelopment.Relatedconstructions of self's organization,workingsenses of self's relationto collective life, and ordinary views of how self develops over time, are situated resources for depicting self and informingcoursesof actiontowardit. Withinandbetweenorganizationswe findadditional circumstancesthat furtherspecify and localize self's shape and substance.Even socalled nationalor internationalperspectivesare locally mediatedas they areconjuredup, invoked, and communicativelylinked to mattersof immediateconcernto participants. At the same time, local cultureis not set in stone, which suggests a second methodologicaldirection.Culturedoes not governthe self's constitution;its elementsarepart andparcelof interpretivepractice.Practicalreasoningarticulatesthe substantiveelements of what local cultureis otherwisetakento be about.Practiceis both aboutcultureand is the use of cultureto indicateandproducepractitioners'concreteconcerns.Procedurally,

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the grounding of the postmodern self is made visible in the documentation of culture as,

and in, interpretivepractice.9 Ultimately, the postmodern challenge to the self extends to the very disciplines that theorize and research it, casting doubt on their privileged status as sciences. As noted earlier, the position we have taken settles on a middle ground; our project is a kind of constitutive and critical empiricism, focused on social and discursive practices. The perspective is classically concerned with the significant, representative objects of our collective experience-the self among them-but is decidedly attuned to the objects' ontological status in everyday life. The approach recognizes the need to adjust conceptually and methodologically as disciplines to both emerging challenges and traditional

footings. ACKNOWLEDGMENT We thank our colleague Gale Miller and the Quarterly's anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

NOTES 1. See, for example, Mills' (1951) discussionof the manipulationand sellingof self, Riesman's (1950) depiction of the inner-and other-directedself, Goffman's(1959) presentedself, Berger, Bergerand Kellner's(1973) homeless mind, and Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, SwidlerandTipton's (1985) self that is lived for itself and throughothers, all of which lead us, classically,to Gergen's (1991) view of the saturatedself. Equally importantare commentariesderiving from feminist, gay/lesbian, cultural, interactionist,critical, psychiatric,and political economic perspectives. 2. For discussion of postmodernismand its relation to social theory,see Alexander(1991), Antonio (1991), Bauman(1988), Best and Kellner(1991), Bogard (1990), Katovichand Reese (1993), Kellner (1988), Lash (1990), Lemert(1991), Norris (1990), Richardson(1991), Rogers (1992), Rosenau(1992), Seidman(1991), and Seidmanand Wagner(1992). 3. See Ichheiser's(1970) work, especiallyhis book Appearancesand Realitiesfor an example of this genre. 4. Ethnomethodologyand relatedversionsof constructionism(see Garfinkel1967, Heritage 1984, Holstein and Gubrium1994b, Holstein and Miller 1993, Pollner 1987, Gubrium1993a, Silvermanand Gubrium1994) have critiquedmodernism'scharacteristically overly theorizedadumbrationsof the empirical.Still, for the most part, ethnomethodologistshave seldom explicitly engaged postmodernconcerns. tries this from the top down andthe resultis 5. Giddens's(1984, 1992)conceptof structuration an overly neat and idealizeddepiction.See Silvermanand Gubrium(1994). 6. The names of personsand organizationshave been fictionalizedthroughout. of postmodernismas eitheraffirmativeor skepticalwould 7. Rosenau's(1992) characterization suggest that it is the skepticalswho are overly abstractin the use of this vocabulary.It might be informsour own groundingin interpretivepractice.While arguedthatan affirmativepostmodernism our bottom-uporientationto the empiricalcontrastswith Giddens's(1990), he seems to have the same distinction in mind and similarlysituates his approach,calling it "radicallymodern,"not (skeptically)postmodern. 8. Analysts mightalso considerotherchallengesposed by the postmodern,includingquestions addressingless discursiveissues like self's ultimatelyemotional(see Denzin 1993) or impulsive properties(see Turner1976) and theircircumstantialconditioning,for example. 9. For furtherdiscussionof the relationbetween interpretivepractice, local culture,and inter-

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pretive resources, see Gubrium(1992), Gubriumand Holstein (1990), Gubriumet al. (1994), Holstein (1993), and Holsteinand Gubrium(1994b).

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