Toronto Theory Workshop | How Collectives Absorb their Members: Toward a Processual Model of Commitment, Attachment, and Embracement
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Description
In this paper, we begin with typical sociological dilemma: commitment has long been a central concept in sociology, yet it remains imprecisely defined conceptually and operationally. At the heart of this confusion is the tendency to use commitment and attachment interchangeably. When we dig more deeply into these concepts, however, we find commitment tends to refer to structural (or cultural) conditions that “demand” loyalty and conformity, while attachment captures subjective desire (or lack thereof) to align one’s own interests and/or sense of self with the collective’s. As we disentangle the two, an additional problem identified by Goffman arises: even the most committed and attached members of a collective can slip for myriad reasons within a given situation or across a sequence of situations. Here, we turn to the idea of embracement to explain the various degrees of distance between our “real” and projected self. The remainder of the paper explores the interesting sociological dynamics that arise when commitment and attachment or attachment and embracement contradict each other.
Discussants: Bill Magee and Alexander Wilson