Ritual, Emotion, Violence

This book offers a trenchant analysis of the theoretical and empirical contributions made by Randall Collins to microsociology, a field in which scholars examine face-to-face interaction in concrete social situations. Following a lucid overview of the field of microsociology by Elliot B. Weininger and Omar Lizardo, the chapters provide a rigorous and engaging conversation with Collins’ arguments. Ethnographic papers by Randol Contreras, using data from New York, and Philippe Bourgois and Laurie Kain Hart, using data from Philadelphia, examine the social logic of violence in street-level narcotics markets. Work by Paul DiMaggio, Clark Bernier, Charles Heckscher, and David Mimno tackles the question of whether electronically mediated interaction exhibits the ritualized character which, according to Collins, is a common feature of face-to-face encounters. Simone Polillo examines the network level factors that facilitate intellectual creativity in diverse research fields. Chapters by Jonathan Turner, David Gibson, and Erika Summer-Effers and Justin Van Ness interrogate—theoretically and empirically—the challenging question of whether and in what sense the face-to-face encounters that constitute the micro-level of social reality enjoy autonomy vis-à-vis the macro-level. The volume concludes with Randall Collins’ reflection on the accomplishments of microsociology and the challenges it faces moving forward.