The Everyday Life Assignment: Practicing Theorizing from Observation

Instructions

The Everyday Life Assignment (29%)OverviewSwedberg’s “Before Theory Comes Theorizing”identifies a series of stages ttheorizing. For this paper, you will use  these stages to practice theorizing an examplefrom everydaylife. How can the process of theorizing challenge your ‘taken for granted knowledge’ about your chosen example and explore wider questions of social lifeand meaning? This is a paper that must be written in the first person because you will need to describe and explain your process and approach.Thispaper is about the process of theorizingversus summarizingexisting theories.Trust me: you have to start doing the assignment to make sense of this process.Be creativeinyour approach and interests, developcareful observations,makeconnectionstoother theoretical ideas,and drawon relevant academic research.DueDate: Upload to the dropbox by Thursday November 12 by 11:59pmInstructionsUse thefollowingstages as headingswithin the paperto organize your process. You might need to review the article by Swedbergand/or the lecture slides to help clarify the purpose of each stage.Stage One: ObservationPick an everyday example(a social ritual, experience,discourse,or representation)that interests you.Try to identify something that you want to explore. This is wide open, but I recommend focussing on something that isreadily availabletoyou. If you have any doubts about your choice, just consult with me or your TA beforehand. So, for example:•Examine media representations (news, tv, film) of a particular identity or social experience•Follow asocial media trend/example•Study apolicy document that impacts your life•Examine atype or pattern of everyday social interaction1Describe your example and report observationsin a way that does not assumethatmeaning is transparent. Be open minded about how to assess your example from different perspectivesandhow you are compiling your observations. Use this stage to identify interesting aspects of your example. Stage Two: Give your phenomenon a nameNarrow down what isinterestingabout yourobservations.Once you have found something to focus on, try to label this process in a way that helps to organize your interests. You can use new or existing sociological terms and/or develop a way to categorize or classify what you are doing. You should at this stage make some connectionsbetween your observations and existing theoretical concepts or research that we are discussing this semester. You may notfocus ontheories/conceptsfromclassical theory or criminological theory (i.e. other classes). Your approach must be part of contemporary theory perspectives.1Should your observations involve observing people, this must only be in public spaces and in accordance with any current COVID safety regulations and restrictions. You are not allowed to interview or speak with humans for this research2Stage Three: Buildonyour InsightsFor this stage, find a way to expand on the insights that you have identified in stage two. Find other ways to refine or enhance your theorizing process by bringing inrelevant sociological research or ways of comparing your example to otherexamples and observations. This stage is where you grow the analysis and build a potential theoretical contribution. Stage Four: Reflect and SummarizeIn Swedberg’s article, the final stage is developing the theory. You will not be doing the final stage in this assignment because that would require more research and data gathering than you can reasonably do for a third-yearpape